date> 1999

medium> intervention with computer, electronic circuitry and fog machine

description>
Throughout the day, a computer interface captures all the keystrokes typed on another computer within the same building. In real time, it translates this raw data to Morse code and broadcasts into the surrounding atmosphere as Morse-encoded smoke signals (longer and shorter puffs of smoke from a standard fog machine) through a vent or other opening in the building. More and less active at various times of the day and its output more and less visible under varying conditions, the apparatus is a kind of exhaust system for the machine of daily industry. At the same time, it relates today's electronic communications to previous revolutions in technology and communications: telegraph, binary languages, steam power, smoke signals. Everyday hopes and fleeting desires, channelled through the implements of daily work, are briefly given form as they are dispersed into the world at large, on the wing of a prayer.

credits> Computer programming by Greg Langille <Langille281@rogers.com>
Produced with the assistance of the Ottawa Art Gallery for the exhibition "In All the Wrong Places"

presentations>
Ottawa Art Gallery (1999); Contemporary Art Gallery (Vancouver, 2001); Plug In ICA (Winnipeg 2001-02); MUCA Roma (Mexico City, 2002); The Power Plant (Toronto, 2002); Bloomberg SPACE (London, 2003); Bellevue Museum of Art (Seattle, 2003); Seoul Museum of Art (2003)

selected bibliography>
Xandra Eden Power Plant catalogue essay
Sigrid Dahle Plug In review
Laura Marks Contemporary Art Gallery essay
Regina Hackett Bellevue Museum review
Robin Laurence Contemporary Art Gallery review
Mathew Kabatoff Rhizome interview