The Silkthreads Mainframe AKA Spiderweb is a 12 hours performance/installation in which a software art piece is being written from scratch. The software itself is a combination of, mostly, patches (Pure Data) used to describe a two dimensional fiction. There are no final patches, the diagram is evolving as the story goes and will disappear as the story ends. It is a book that will be opened with the 1st word and be closed with the last word. The patch/diagram is entangled in other dimensions. A book is linear, while the Silkthreads Mainframe AKA Spiderweb is non linear and its syntax evolves in 2 dimensions, it will only exist and live during MF and never again after. During the 12 hours the audience will be able to read the diagrams on screens and hear the Silkthreads Mainframe AKA Spiderwebs whispers and shouts. After the 12 hours the only trace will be in a time based file repository (SVN) where one will be able afterwards to reconstruct the story via revision numbers (the book pages).

Performed by: Valentina Vuksic, Marloes de Valk, Aymeric Mansoux and Chun Lee.

The Silkthreads Mainframe was part of “Moving Forest”:

Moving Forest is a 12 hour 5 act sonic performance to be intervened by an expandable citywide operatic manoeuver with public wifi and mobile technology. Derived from Kurosawa’s film version of Macbeth, Spider Web Castle. Moving Forest renders the film’s final sequences (12 minutes in length) into a 12 hour sonica of grand scale. Moving Forest reinvents a modern edition of a Castle Central and a city in revolt. Inside the castle, the downfall of the assumed power; outside in the city, the mobilized urbanites march with generated sounds of insurgence towards the imaginary Central. Moving Forest collaborates with sound artists to compose acts and scores, at the same time, drafts a PD (pure data) conspiracy scheme, performing live with citywide wifi transmitted intervention.

Directed by Martin Howse and Shu Lea Chang

Players: Mattin, Leif Elggren, Kaffe Mathews, Joachim Montessuis, Phil Niblock,Alexandra von Bolz’n, Tam Dean Burn, Vagina Jones , Christian Kesten, Natalia Pschenitschnikova, Aymeric Mansoux, Marloes de Valk, Chun Lee, Valentina Vuksik, Matthew Fuller, Linda Dement, Graham Harwood, Michael Asschuer, Gordan Savicic, Gottfried Haider, Ricardo Miranda Zuniga, Martin Howse, Martin Kuentz, Alexei Blinov, Brendan Howell, Ilze Black, Olaf Matthes.

“Nowhere was the demonstration of the conference theme stronger than in the events which took place off-site. The creators of “The Moving Forest” (directed by Shu Lea Chang and Martin Howse) literally invited attendees to conspire along with them through an epic twelve hour, five act sonic performance using WiFi and mobile technology. A mysterious base was set up in the House of World Cultures, with PD patches being tweaked, equipment being distributed, and various “agents” prowling about. As part of one of the acts, participants armed with “radio guns” stormed landmarks and maneuvered through the city. As an exclusive event to transmediale.08, the Urban Media Salon acted as a platform for discussion and exchange, but fittingly operated largely under the radar. The locations for the salons, hosted in private apartments, were announced at the last minute, and guests were invited to share meals with other participants. Conversation flowed, and new bonds were formed over discussion of not only the transmediale.08 events, but also other diverse topics that emerged over the course of the evening. Sitting at the dinner table in a stranger’s apartment, I experienced the strongest sense of potential for the “conspire” theme. Conspiracy in action, after all, can only happen behind closed doors, at a series of intimate gatherings scattered across the city, in locations that were learned a few hours before and scrawled on a scraps of paper, to be forgotten later.” (from: review of Transmediale 08:CONSPIRE, by Michelle Kasprzak, 06.02.08)

For more information about the Moving Forest project, please visit the project site http://www.movingforest.net