Artist Statement

Aether9 is a collaborative art project exploring the field of realtime video transmission. It was initiated in May 2007 during a workshop at the Mapping Festival in Geneva, Switzerland. Developed by an international group of visual artists and collectives working in different locations (Europe, North and South America) and communicating solely through the Internet, Aether9 is a framework for networked video/audio performance, and the collaborative development of dramaturgical rules particular to Internet modes of communication. The system functions as an open platform for participants of any technical level to transmit imagery in real-time and interact through a structured narrative performance questioning the issues of presence/absence, remote/local, identity and intimacy in the context of the electronic space. [source:  aether9.org/about]

• Manuel Schmalstieg (1976, CH) is an artist, designer and educator, operating on the borderline between media art and hacker communities. A graduate of HEAD Geneva and ASP Kraków, he founded multiple collaborative entities, including N3krozoft Ltd (2001), a technological think tank; realtime online performance group Aether9 (2007); post-digital publishing house Greyscale Press (2008); and many others.   [source: ms-studio.net]