And WAP Media Lab Targets India Italian Firm's Dolce Music Deal Monday's keynote had four performance artists discussing their experiments with computers that crisscross the barrier between electronic and physical media, shattering assumptions about the nature of digital information. What we have learned is that cyberspace is immaterial. That is and it isn't true. To show the current limitations of how humans experience data, Jeremijenko helped build Trigger, a mechanized horse with an engine programmed to replicate the ground motion of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. This and other works seek to turn information into a physical phenomenon for people to see and experience.
Electronic data can also be immediate and directed.
Berkeley graduate student Eric Paulos built floating drones that can cruise the hallways of work after hours, eavesdrop on conversations, and be used like mobile surveillance cameras. However, the drones can't open locked doors, Paulos assured an audience of 300. The experiments pose some interesting sociological questions. The Survival Research Laboratories explore issues of human responsibility in recent work using the Internet as a medium for activating lethal machinery. SRL's more dramatic performances show the capability to cause mischief in spades.