ENERGIE PASSAGEN
(Energy Passages)
Reading and (De)Scribing the City

Language is intellectual energy that shapes a city. The conversations of its inhabitants and the language of politics and the media represent flows of energy. They form the city's invisible architecture, "measured" and made visible in this installation.

Starting point for »Energie Passagen« are texts taken from a mass medium, the daily newspaper. An automated computer process analyses the German newspaper, "Süddeutsche Zeitung", and reduces it to catchwords. The terms are filtered in this process and projected as an "information flow" onto the public square »Salvatorplatz« in Munich.

As a visitor, you have a choice of terms which you can select and "throw" into the river. Thus, movements of text are initiated and links between the terms become apparent. The resulting networks of terms create contextual links and new meanings which differ from the original linear texts. Computer voices immediately react to your "input" and accompany you in an echoing symphony of voices.

Addition, a world map visualises the path through the geographic landscape of news taken by the visitor. A developing linear illustration emphasizes the links between local location and global events.

The visible result of this interactive process is the "Living Newspaper". Its dynamically generated texts are also projected onto the "information cube". The de-construction of the newspaper based upon the fragmentation and transformation of its original content facilitates a new form of reading and understanding. The flow's artificial voices invite you to discover new contexts.

"Energie Passagen" demonstrates how meaning is generated by difference and offers a sensuously perceptible scope of action which releases a new communication potential.