Home Transnfer

Category

Others

Year

2002 - 2004

Institution

RHIZOME, New York

Comment

HOME TRANSFER is a net-art web project that explores the intersection of home, architecture and new technologies. A dwelling made of bread and its parasitic invasion is used to investigate changing notions of place and presence. Host/Guest relations are established between the artist, architects and people online. The work explores the relevance of contemporary practices in people's everyday lives. It reveals the psychological and physiological impact imposed by virtual space and automation on being at home.HOME TRANSFER features streaming video of architects discussing a cultural paradigm where technology affects aspects of domestic life in new ways.Visitors may share thoughts in two guest-books provided for this purpose.The aim is to build a space for speculation where people can express their excitement and/or anxiety about this topic. The work has evolved over time on the basis of these interactions recorded in three archives. The evolving discourse is essential in building the work's content.The piece is composed of three discrete sections that the visitors travels through to construct meaning: Guest, Host and Parasite. The Guest section is modeled after an architectural e-journal showcasing video-taped and text-based interviews with guest architects who talk about technology and its impact upon notions of "Home". The Host section invites online visitors to post their ideas about "feeling at home". The result is a vast archive where different opinions and languages co-habit, an ethnographic record about what it means to feel well and feel in place today. The Parasite section investigates the parasite's relation to media and communication systems, the relationship of parasite to host, or giver to taker in a system of exchange. This section is modeled after a game: the killing game, the containing game and the propagating game.HOME TRANSFER is part of an ongoing cluster of works that Pat Badani began in 1994. In these works, the artist uses a city made of bread-bowls and its parasitic invasion as metaphor to explore social space. These ongoing projects create communication paths between the artist, Citizens-at-large (both on-line and off-line), and specialists in different fields of Art, Science and Humanities (Bakers, Doctors, Architects). A discussion is launched incorporating the public sphere via the Internet.