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The advent, in the early nineties, of multimedia technologies, interactivity,
programmable means of expression, opened a vast new territory to imagination
and design. Cyberspace is far more than a mega-assemblage of data bases,
it constitutes a totally novel place, basis for a whole range of activities
which have become an integral part of social existence.
Torn between the profession of urbanist and this new world, the web
site "Iceland
Sundaes", made in 1997, constitutes a personal exploration of
the relationship between urban space and the network.
The central part consists of the chronicles of Hieronymus Lamborghini,
a traveller who crashed the firewalls to become a vagabond wandering through
a series of imaginary spaces, from where he would send dispatches, like
an explorer of uncharted lands... |
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The rest of the site is concerned with the sense of place, and with
urban questions seen through the prism of internet.
This section accesses the Cybourgia Manifest, a text probing the spatial
nature of the network, in a bid to accord it an "urban" destiny.
With hindsight, I am quite sceptical, for in spite of all the frenetic
activity surrounding "virtual" worlds, it is our real wallet
which is debited.
In 1998, Iceland Sundaes was chosen for the LA Freewaves Festival and
was exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. |
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During the company Magelis's existence, urban issues constituted
a leitmotiv for its work. In 2001, the company made a web site on sustainable development for the Regional Environmental Agency of Midi-Pyrénées.
The home page was built upon an educational game in the form of a puzzle,
metaphor for town transformation, where urban segments could be displaced
relative to each other. Thus the chemical factory might find itself
adjacent to residential areas... tragically so, for a few months later,
the AZF factory in Toulouse - which had been the model for the puzzle
- exploded, killing over thirty people and badly injuring 2500... |
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