Location: Bondi Junction Westfield atrium, Bondi Junction, Tower 1

When: July 2007

Zina Kaye installed Hyperplex, an intervention within a sophisticated LED system that disrupted the media saturated environment of Westfield Bondi Junction shopping centre with a series of obscure, but subversive conversations. Shoppers and flanneurs were able to peek into the lives of several people who corresponded via the LCD system. Three pairs of characters: an eloquent couple who have moved from lovers to best friends; an eccentric brother and sister who correspond through coded exchange; and two teenagers tossed about by their desires, ’spoke’ to each other in a mix of colloquialisms, aphorisms, sayings and mixed metaphors.

The conversations dealt, in part with the proliferation of the language of fear. These tensions were subtley translated within Kaye’s script from different generational perspectives. Viewers eavesdropped on part of a conversation and could contemplate the familiar yet fragmented nature of interpersonal communication.

To view the work and artist interview:

Zina Kaye: Hyperplex interview and installation

Press:

Hyperplex – Ella Maudie. ANAT Filter 67.

Active Loitering – James Dodd. ANAT Filter 67.

Text Messages: Zina Kaye, Caia Hagel & Tim Georgeson – George Alexander. ArtAsiaPacific No. 56.

Hyperplexic, desalinated by not scary – Ann Finegan, Artlink Vol 28, No. 1

See also:

What’s in Store: Visual Merchandising News – Amanda Carr. WGSN.com, September 2007.

T100 October 2007 Visual Merchandising Report. T100.cn

An artist is scanning ACARS at Melbourne Airport, and showing the information on LED signs at a new exhibition in the Australian Centre for the Moving Image opening 8th June 2004.

Zina Kaye makes visible a cross section of the data that orbits an airport, drawing connections between the dispersive & disorientating nature of air travel, and the quietly invisible chaos of radio traffic. The work is called ‘The Line Ahead’ and can be seen during the ‘2004: Australian Art Now’ exhibition until mid-September.

Viewers in the gallery are presented with a giddy vision of the chaotic movement of data and the private conversations of aeroplanes: flight numbers, origin and destination shown on three giant LED screens. Behind the scenes, a Winradio-built antenna is bolted to the roof of Melbourne Airport, connected to a Winradio receiver sitting on top of a Linux server. The Open Source ACARSd project decodes the messages, transmitting them to the signs at the gallery and to The Line Ahead website.

Kaye finds inspiration in big engineering such as space stations and radio telescopes, and her work often reflects on the systems that make these things work. She exhibits in Australia and Europe.

Note for the present

This work is still live and scanning Sydney: visit the website for latest flights: The Line Ahead.

Collector’s Edition

A collector’s edition of this work is available. Please contact Clare Lewis at Terminus Projects for enquireies. Clare (at) terminusprojects (dot) org.

The book covers four basic financial models and really – let’s face it – focuses on behaviours in developed countries only.

Anderson bases his argument on the tenet that it’s in everyone’s best interest to fast-track brand establishment and market share. If you’ve done corporate finance you’ll concur and point solemnly to texts that note that endless wild growth is unsustainable and that most high growth operations tend to fall in line with CPI within the first few years. The point of FREE is that it’s much easier to blow the competition out of the water if they don’t have to get out a wallet.

People who know me will attest to my ongoing passionate interest in micropayments. Micropayments are typically transactions between $1 to $12. The idea is that you should be able to make small payments that will – through their sheer volume – lubricate the market enough to keep it going. Anderson doesn’t agree with the proposition. He uses Nick Szabo’s “mental transaction costs” as an argument against micropayments saying that,

“If you charge a price, any price, we are forced to ask ourselve if we really want to open our wallets. But if the price is zero, that flag never goes up and the decision just got easier.

“… (Szabo was right: Micropayments have largely failed to take off.)”

I find this an extraordinary thing to say given the phenomenal success of Legion Interactive, iTunes, Ebay & Google Adwords. I also happen to believe that the FREE model has been foisted on creatives for way too long and they often have a huge challenge meeting basic needs. It’s fine to gather brand share but then what? What’s the endgame? Well to quote Bruce Sterling’s response to Cory Doctrow in his State of the Nation 2010:

“Ever heard of “disruptive innovation,” “disintermediation,” “offshoring,” “small pieces loosely joined,” “de-monetization,” “plug and play,” “the network as a platform”? Of course you’ve heard of all that crap, because you’ve been tub-thumping it your entire adult life, but what the hell did you think that was all about? Did you think you were gonna bend every effort to virtualize reality, and then get a gold railway-retirement watch and a safe place to park the cradle?”

Appropriateness is obviously the keyword when thinking about both FREE and micropayments.

Micropayments in particular are going to succeed when the billing situation is appropriate. Think about phone credit as a trusted central payment gateway. Would you use your phone to buy a loaf of bread and a paper on a Sunday morning?  To lend someone five bucks?  To get into a movie theatre? To pay off a student loan? Maybe you get paid in phone credit and it’s handy because the government will find it harder to track and tax you.

The mobile money schemes in Africa are the product of some of the greatest thinking in micropayment execution and a model that I’m sure will find its way here. African consumers have an immense need  for a reliable, secure, low cost banking system. So how handy is it when banking can effortlessly piggyback on the region’s high uptake of mobile phones that don’t required fixed line infrastructure. In September 2009 The Economist published a special report on the power of mobile money. They reported that in Kenya 7 million – just under a fifth of the population – use M-PESA. Roughly $2m is transferred every day, with an average transaction cost of $20

From Africa to Brazil, China, Australia, New Zealand and through Europe – I think there is a place for mobile banking. It may not be a huge profit card for mobile carriers but it will make them popular, revitalise brands and who knows – it might shake up the EFTPOS and the credit card cartels.

The point is that both FREE and micro are good.

Alter the /boot/grub/menu.lst file to show the root at sda1

rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst
rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ grep sda /boot/grub/menu.lst
# kopt=root=/dev/sda1 ro


Update grub

rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ sudo update-grub
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
warning: grub-probe can't find drive for /dev/sda1.
Please check /boot/grub/device.map, you might have to regenerate it with grub-mkdevicemap.


Update devicemap

rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ cat /boot/grub/device.map
(hd0) /dev/hda
rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ sudo grub-mkdevicemap
rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ cat /boot/grub/device.map
(fd0) /dev/fd0
(hd0) /dev/sda
(hd1) /dev/sdb


Update grub (again)

rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ sudo update-grub
Searching for GRUB installation directory ... found: /boot/grub
Searching for default file ... found: /boot/grub/default
Testing for an existing GRUB menu.lst file ... found: /boot/grub/menu.lst
Searching for splash image ... none found, skipping ...
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686
Found kernel: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done


Check grub and reboot

rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ grep sda /boot/grub/menu.lst
# kopt=root=/dev/sda1 ro
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-2-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro single
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.26-1-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro single
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.18-4-686 root=/dev/sda1 ro single
rossetti@Wakatipu:~$ sudo reboot

Zina Kaye.