Mouth on the net

Net.art Video Creation
Technique: Programming, video, net.art
Dimensions: 65 x 160 cm
Variable speed and duration
Keywords: Variability, Modularity, Self-generation, Network structure
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2009

Mouth on the Net is a net art video creation. The piece consists of a projection of a smiling female mouth, dancing in a fluctuating motion. The scene is split into seven segments, each moving independently.

When observed carefully, the viewer can discern the melody that drives the piece’s dance. The segments are dispersed across the internet, and the video projection is generated in real time as data arrives through the web, revealing the digital bloodstream of the network.

Mouth on the Net embraces the internet’s difficulty in transmitting real-time information, transforming this limitation into a constructive element. Each segment is hosted on a different server, in separate physical (geographic server locations) and virtual (internet URLs) locations, and they are reassembled through projection as a single unit across seven fabric screens that function as the display surface. The playback of each segment depends on the download speed of its frames and, consequently, the transfer rate of its host, resulting in each fragment having a distinct and variable speed.

The work portrays the medium as a living entity, reliant on the digital oxygenation provided by data flow across the web. Rather than imitating traditional formats like video or film, it leverages the intrinsic qualities of its medium to create a constantly shifting piece—never showing the same smile twice.

The media

In artistic creation, it is entirely legitimate to seek new aesthetic and formal approaches that raise awareness of our shifting technological present. These new constructions are inevitably linked to the language and architecture from which they emerge, allowing form and medium to be conceived as a unified whole. Transposing aesthetic models from other media to the internet is often inadequate and unfruitful from an artistic standpoint. The linearity of film or the replication of identical copies in photography do little to address the variability and transcodification native to new media.

The constant possibility of generating a different piece through the structure of the internet implies working with a unique aesthetic, language, and poetics.

Mouth on the Net is the result of an internet-based video system that cannot be translated into any other medium. It does not simply reveal the medium—it uses it as its discourse. This concept of the “non-transparency of the medium,” combined with the work’s mimetic relationship between the internet and living organisms—as structures dependent on biological or digital oxygenation—are the true aesthetic and conceptual engines of a piece that turns the medium itself into a form of visual poetry.

Installation Setup

Mouth on the Net is presented as a visual animation designed to be projected onto seven fabric screens. A computer connected to the internet receives the signal and sends it to the projector for display. The screens are constructed with wooden frames and cotton fabric, measuring a total of 160 x 65 cm. They do not require a darkened room, provided the projector has sufficient brightness and contrast.

Technical description

Seven servers on different hosts support the fragments or modules that make up the piece. Each module consists of a looped chain of 358 frames. Notably, each time it reloads, the file name changes to prevent the computer from storing it in cache memory. This playback method ensures that each of the seven modules is fed directly from the internet, creating independent timelines tied to the transmission speed of their respective hosts.

The work is hosted online. Each module resides in a different part of the web, requiring a reconstruction program that calls each host, places the pieces in their respective positions, and reassembles the work into a complete unit. This program functions like a digital key, summoning each URL and relaying the signal to a digital projector that displays the variable sequence across the seven screens.

Web servers

Several servers in different geographic locations respond to the call of Mouth on the Net, delivering images one by one depending on network transfer speed. The illusion of movement arises from the continuous playback of frame sequences, each executing independently. This is a visual animation system generated by the very structure of the internet.