Overview

A Transmaterial Body explores the boundaries of the self through poetic appropriation of network technology, the work consisted of a mobile network created by a small linux machine, broadcasting a wireless signal creating a localized intranet wireless network. A periodic durational performance, this network was battery powered and carried on my person at all times during the performance. As such, the network and myself were constantly centered on and overlapping with each other. ​

Users who connected to this network found their device's web browsers redirecting them to a web page accessible to them only while on the network and which prompted them to speak to me in person. Viewer’s who spoke to me were then given access to the rest of the server which contained live streamed biological data, selected texts (including source material for recreating this project), and other media. ​

In this work, the prefix trans- is a tactic and gesture employed to explore and expand the boundaries of the corporeal self and to consider technological prosthesis as a potential site of artistic performance.

Links

This performance premiered in Berlin at the 2018 Radical Networks Conference:
https://radicalnetworks.org/archives/2018/gallery/ ​

The work was developed further as part of my Fall 2019 toolmaker residency at Signal Culture:
http://signalculture.org/chelseathompto.html#.XfHNWnpKjOQ

Code Repository:
https://github.com/cthompto/Transmaterial

Additional Documentation

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For additional documentation and/or information about this project, please feel free to contact me at:
[email protected]