theSCREEN.tv is a broadcast of a discussion room for contemporary art and its discourse, and for the development of the interface between electronic and physical space.
Works about opinion making and opinions will be staged within the physical space and uploaded to the Internet to form a media/electronic sculpture. The content-related and artistic exchange of contributors on an interactive platform and the topics and possibilities of discourse are reminiscent of a developing town. The systemic skeleton underlying the urban communication network of artistic/creative intervention and socio-political dynamics is transparent, and establishes the global urban space of the virtual installation, dispensing with the actual components of logistics, such as domestic refuse collection, static construction for traffic and housing, etc.
In contrast to pure real space simulation projects such as Second Life, this network evolves through the art project contributions and spaces, which evolve fractally within the network sculpture.

theSCREEN.tv is based upon the concept of diaphanous membrane architecture. With its virtual mapping, the media and communication network transcends the current horizons of communication and visualisation of common online and offline spaces. The spaces installed through video technology have counterparts in physical space, which expand them with the additional dimension of the inter/action, which, above all, is integral to the live streaming event, and not – as in common Internet video portals – a minor commentary tool.

Streaming Platform

theSCREEN.tv broadcasts programming. This is not built up in a (chronologically) linear manner, like on TV, but can – thanks to the technical possibilities of computer-generated data networks
– be read along different content strings and programmed individually. The contributions shown
– art videos, interactive performances, recordings, documentaries, etc. – will be navigated, guided and contextualized in posted discussions and comments by moderators in a 3D navigation room.
The program offered can be commented on and discussed at various nodes – in chat rooms and forums. However, the program offered can also be infiltrated by audio and video contributions. In this way the staged video room remains dynamic and accessible on a broader basis.

How to join – how to present – how to produce

theSCREEN is a cluster that is open in structure and content. In this way, theSCREEN offers to a potentially large number of media and video artists the opportunity to present, discuss, and stream their video works, clips, project documentations, project ideas, and content, on the platform, and hence to generate publicity. theSCREEN offers the opportunity to shape programming with moderation strings, to lead discussion with available material and posted contributions, and to produce personal program clusters and place them on the streaming platform.

The navigation room of the SCREEN.

In contrast to conventional TV, which is structured in broadcasting sequences and program bumpers along a linear timeline, or common Internet video archives, that currently operate under the brand name WebTV and are structured along the lines of database input, the SCREEN is structured according to completely different attributes in a four-dimensional time-space network. The nodes of this time-space network correspond to the time of action or presentation of the individual program items and to the real sites of the cooperation partners. The virtual counterparts of physical points in time-space, (places) can be navigated in a 3-D space. In this 3-D navigation room, moderators perform as guides, and generate content-based strings as programs with their moderated journeys through that time-space. Hence the users can enter, change or exit the strings and navigate autonomously through the time-space, to make individual program journeys, or follow other moderation strings.

This structure makes it possible for an editorial group or editors to create a new moderation string through the existing material, or to insert a new contribution into an existing string and to contextualize it that way.
At the same time, it is possible to establish and operate chat rooms and forums at the individual string nodes. Despite this dynamic process, the individual contributions can be located according to where they were produced or performed. The central concept is the programs’ individualized communication, and reciprocal communication through real people.

liveStream

Regular live streamings from and between physical places form the backbone of the SCREEN. They can be fashioned, shaped and commented on interactively in a variety of ways such as through Skype, chat, video telephony, and other electronic means of communication – depending on the concept, staging idea, and type of event. Live broadcasts are a regular part of what happens in the konTEXTlabs of LABfactory. In cooperation with local cooperation partners, experim()nde and the Architekturzentrum Wien, the following symposium themes have been developed (working titles):Time-architecture; Modification of space and architecture through media; Media and networking architecture.