The interactive installation CloudBrowsing (2008-09) by Bernd Lintermann, Torsten Belschner, Mahsa Jenabi and Werner A. König is the first work to be shown in ZKM's recently established PanoramaLab. The project lets users experience Web-based information retrieval in a new way: Whereas our computer monitor only provides a restricted frame, a small window through which we experience the multilayered information landscape of the Net only partially and in a rather linear mode, the installation turns browsing the Web into a spatial experience: Search queries and results are not displayed as text-based lists of links, but as a dynamic collage of sounds and images. The content-based relations as well as the history of the searches and the information retrieval are not only visualized through the positioning of the individual images that each represent a website, but also through a dynamic soundscape that changes accordingly. In the current version of the project, the user browses the free online encyclopedia »Wikipedia«, which is compiled by a global community and thus exemplifies the collective knowledge of the Web. A filter mechanism ensures that only open content is displayed in the installation.
The cylindrical surface of the PanoramaScreen thus becomes a large-scale browser surrounding the user, who can thus experience a panorama of his movements in the virtual information space.
Venue: ZKM_PanoramaLab
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