Computer-Generated Universal Mandalas

lowed the correspondents who were connected to the network at a given time to enter directly into the broadcast via six modes: ISDN, vocal, modem , touchtone, videophone and fax. The television screen was virtually divided into three zones: the upper part included the zones for videophone, fax and modem; the lower zone showed the image of text messages. Conclusion In these performances, voices, music and sounds were mixed together simultaneously with the images in what were essentially playful communication spaces. The challenge was to construct a language of interactive communication and to define a specific syntax at the edge of intelligibility and cacophony. The transmission of binary messages on the virtual "piazzettas" (little places) has permitted us to unite different modes of communication through different means of access, such as modem, ISDN, videophone and voice. The voice is used to define the rules of the game, the binarisations to calculate the results of the performance and to stimulate the association ofideas. The interventions of 12, 15, and 18 September 1992 at Documenta IX have allowed us to set up several criteria for interactive multimedia communication: (1) the preeminence of the voice and of speech as a unifying principle in multiple communications, (2) the necessity of broadcasting a single message at a given moment, (3) allowance for the association and rebounding of ideas as forms of communication, (4) the priority of light and rapid digital activities. Notes I, CulturalSigns took place at the Venice Biennale from 21-27June 1993, in collaboration with ECI and Casino Container. 2. Memory of the Twentieth Centurytook place at Documenta IX in Kassel. Germany from 10-20 September 1992, in collaboration with ECI and Van Gogh 'IV. LEsMlRADORS DE LAPAlX. (THE WATCHTOWERS OF PEACE) Fred Forest, Le Territoire, 60540 Anserville, France. Received 26July 1993. AcceptedJar publicationby Annick Bureaud. The Watchtowers ojPeace--an event I organized at the former Yugoslavian border ofAustria-allowed for world-wide participationin a telecommunications demonstration [1]. The "watchtowers" were three 8-m-high metallic structures installed at the top of a pass in the mountains above Slovenia. Powerful loudspeakers were mounted on each of these three sound sculptures. The naturallandscape gave a poetic dimension to the project although it was not landscape art. Rather, this work came out of the Aesthetic of Communication movement [2], and its primary purpose was to underline the concept of relation. Connected to the international telephone network, The Watchtowers ojPeace could be called from all over the world. An invitation was extended to anyone wishing to participate through a live and real-time telephone call to cover the territories facing war with messages of peace, positive waves and energies. Simultaneously, the calls were processed by a computer as they came in and were converted into electronic signals (a metaphor for the collective energies ) to be sent on the network whenever a 3D-secperiod passed without an incoming call. The physical range of the loudspeakers was limited to approximately 30 km. The shape of the mountains in the area acted as an echo chamber in which the amplified sounds of the calls reverberated . Beyond this local situation, the calls were transmitted to Yugoslavia and to European countries by microwave relay .The event reached various radio stations (among them Radio France International [RFI]) , which, through FM and short waves, cover the whole planet. It was also transmitted to "Right to Speak" radio, which is installed on a boat off the Yugoslavian coast, and from there it reached listeners in Sarajevo, Zagreb and Belgrade. Listeners were invited to telephone "Le Monde de l'Art," an international gallery in Paris, where their calls were amplified for the audience. The calls were stored in a sound database used by other radio stations like Radio Nova and RFM. Thus, an interactive communication system integrating various layers and networks was built. Printed media played a role up- and downstream of the process, introducing the symbolic inside the information space. In this kind ofwork it is important to recall that the independent activities of artists do not, unfortunately, have the power to modify real crisis situations whose outcomes depend primarily upon political , military, economic or even social decisions. Nevertheless, symbolic actions remain a fundamental necessity...