A computer screen shows the Earth floating in outer-space. Slowly, as the computer receives and sends Internet data, this model of the Earth folds itself to bring the two countries closer to one another. I hope to illustrate the post-regionality of online community through contorting the landscape -- changing the shape of the Earth to make possible the physical travel that would have otherwise been necessary. EarthFolding is a carnivore client. Carnivore, created by RSG, is a surveillance tool for data networks. At the heart of the project is CarnivorePE, a software application that listens to the Internet traffic (email, web surfing, etc.) on a given local network. CarnivorePE serves this datastream over the net to a variety of interfaces called "clients." These clients are each designed to animate, diagnose, or interpret the network traffic in various ways. Carnivore clients have been produced by a number of computational artists and designers from around the world. Note: You are not required to install Carnivore. If the Earthfolding software cannot connect to Carnivore, then it will default to an entertaining demonstration mode in which IP addresses are generated at random. This Carnivore client was produced as a project in a class taught by Alex Galloway entitled Internet Protocols. The class was cross listed with the NYU Media Ecology department. The folding earth is a reflection on the following writings: Gilles Deleuze, "Postscript on Control Societies"; Brecht, Bertolt, "The Radio as an Apparatus of Communication"; Eric Hall, "Internet Core protocols"; Lessig, Lawrence, The Future of Ideas; Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown; Geert Lovink, Dark Fiber; Sol Witt, Paragraphs on Conceptual Art.
EarthFolding_install.exe (451 KB)
