BangBang is an installation by the Bureau of Inverse Technology that uses customized smart video cameras positioned in urban settings and areas of political conflict around the world. These cameras are triggered when a loud explosive noise is detected in the vicinity of the sensor/camera system, which will then capture a short segment of video (2-5seconds). The footage captured is transmitted to receivers and automatically posted to the BangBang website.
The physical experience of the installation is quite simple. The explosive sounds are relayed in real time to the exhibition site, and the triggered video loops are presented on small LCD displays. These periodic retorts punctuate the space of the exhibition, a visceral reminder of "other" places. The ensuing heightened silence clears a mental space of contemplation.
BangBang, like Medi@terra's theme NEO [TECHNO] LOGISMs, is an attempt to frame an alternative way of thinking--to shift the discourse--by using technology to create an alternative means of communicating and hence of understanding.
The message of the televisual medium -- of broadcast media in general -- is one of command and consumption and control. The interactivity of the televisual broadcast is remote-control channel surfing, a reflection of the insistent targeting of your attention, the branded purchase of your eyeballs.
BangBang uses the peer-to-peer protocols of the Internet to attempt to be a persistent network, one which can survive a ratings bomb. It is a self-actuaing network, calling attention to itself only when there is news to report, gunfire retorts. It is an immersive network, with 3D sound spatialization and no volume control. It is a Waiting for Godot network in John Cage 4'33" time, not the 24/7 beat of global consumer-capitalism.
For despite the rhetoric of -- and desire for -- global connectivity and collective action (if not consciousness), a gap remains. In the silent wake of the retort, the local context cannot be fully transmitted, and the global network cannot fully escape centrism -- being me-centric, local-cenric, nation-centric, broadcasst-centric.
When the network works at all, as the Bureau points out:
The use of sensor triggered automoation (vs human editorial judgment) is bound to pick up some false triggers. These "mistakes" become a fascinating commentary on the idealized and popular belief that automation removes human error. Furthermore it presents this information in a disturbingly real time capacity with real-time updates added to the sum of loop events in the space. This final point reposes what it means to have this sort of information (ubiquitous video cameras) available and reposes the network as a public sphere. What can the reaction be? what should/can people do with this information? This project connects people not simply through literal networks but also via the behavioral similarities in the use of violent technological means.
BangBang asks implicitly what is the language of the network and what is the rhetoric of the network and can the former be effectvely activated by better understanding the latter?
