Vapor Trails of Europe

alien productions (Martin Breindl, Norbert Math, Andrea Sodomka)

A COPY OF THIS PROGRAM CAN BE ORDERED FROM THE "ORF TONBANDDIENST"

In the view of migratory movements and the rapid increase of data transfers at the beginning of the 1990s, the artists group alien productions, together with the group x-space, realised a telematic, interactive live project called State of Transition (1994). Alongside its Europe-wide network and the participation of many artists, the project provided online access for users to manipulate the live events on various sites as well as in the radio space. Although Europe has since merged into a conglomerate without boundaries, the migratory movements, the problems and questions they cause for individuals, have hardly changed. Global data traffic, in contrast, has exploded on all levels and in all forms of media. The “cultural heritage” of Europe increasingly becomes a fiction and dissolves in networks, on circuit paths and traffic routes. It reappears elsewhere, connected with foreign data and other traditions, as a new life form. „Vapor Trails of Europe“ picks up this thought and continues it by literally transporting condensates of European culture into the orbit. alien productions participate in the project mur.sat, a small satellite financed, fed and operated by artists only. For an estimate period of three months, mur.sat will circulate around the earth on an altitude of 310 kilometers and unfold its artistic activities, before burning up upon entering the atmosphere. For their contribution to mur.sat, alien productions collect fragments of European acoustic culture, with a little help from artists all over the continent. For Kunstradio’s contribution to the Euroradio Concert Series of the EBU’s Ars Acustica, they laid out the collected fragments, and then condensed them into sound packages to fit the satellite in a one-hour performance at the ORF Funkhaus on 7 December, 2010. These sound parcels will be sent to outer space with mur.sat in 2011. Throughout the orbital journey they will regularly be dropped back down to the earth. Recipients, wherever they may be located, have the opportunity (given that they have the equipment) to receive these parcels, to work with them and to beam them back aboard the Satellite. Thus, “Vapor Trails of Europe“ is disseminated parallel via two unequal channels: the strong, accomplished and reliable EBU satellite, and its small, alternative, puckish brother mur.sat. http://alien.mur.at/ http://esc.mur.at/mursat.html http://sat.mur.at/ http://www.ebu.ch/en/radio/euroradio_classics/arsacustica/index.php

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