June 18 to Sept. 7, 2008: Human Browser has been selected by this year’s Artistic Director Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, chief curator of Castello di Rivoli, to participate to revolutions online one of the venues of the Biennale of Sydney 2008.

“The 2008 Biennale of Sydney is presented at some of Sydney’s finest harbourside sites and visitors can take the Biennale ArtWalk from venue to venue along the water’s edge. For the first time the exhibition will utilise the astonishing former prison and shipyard, Cockatoo Island. For the fifth time Sydney’s only remaining undeveloped historical wharf - Pier 2/3 in Walsh Bay - will feature as a venue.

Sydney’s leading arts institutions, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Art Gallery of New South Wales and Artspace will again be dedicated to the country’s foremost international art event. Specific events and artworks will be presented at the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Sydney Opera House, plus in 2008, we are thrilled to present the first Online Venue for a biennale worldwide.”

Jan. 23 - 28, 2007: Human Browser wins the Share Festival. The jury was:

Carolyn Christov Bakargiev, chief curator Castello di Rivoli
Joasia Krysa, curator & senior lecturer University of Plymouth
Alex Adriaansen, director V2 di Rotterdam
Vicente Matallana, director La Agencia di Madrid
Gerfried Stocker, director Ars Electronica Festival di Linz

The festival was curated by Simona Lodi, Chiara Garibaldi, Manuela De Caro, Luca Barbeni, at the Accademia Albertina di Belli Arti in Torino. Human Browser was performed in Italian by Alessandra Lappano assisted by Simone Sandretti. With the support of the Centre Culturel Français de Turin.

In case you wonder, the background sound in the video comes from a great installation by Gregory Shakar: The Analog Color Field Computer that was also nominated for the prize. Amazon-noir by Ubermorgen, Paolo Cirio and Alessandro Ludovico got the Honorary Mention. The other nominees were: Sensity - The Emergent City (Stanza), Shockbot Corejulio (5voltcore) and the Mikro Orchestra Project.

Performance of Human Browser, interpreted in Italian by Simona Sagone, at the Future Web Festival 2007, curated by Luca Vaglio, FutureFilmFestival at Palazzo ReEnzo, Bologna.

You can watch the videos in this article by Luca Vaglio, "Google va all'Actor's Studio", Affari Italiani.

Sept. 23, 2006: performance of Human Browser, aka Jérôme Piques, at the festival "Les futurs de l'écrit" ("The Futurs of Writing"), Abbaye de Noirlac. Ecriture et lecture : nouvelles formes, curated by Emmanual Cyriaque, David-Olivier Lartigaud et al., Editions Hyx.

Extract 1 - Extract 2 (in French)

Exhibited artists: Dan Graham, Pierre Bismuth, Yves Duranthon, Mongrel, ASCII Art Ensemble, Christophe Bruno, Martin Le Chevallier, Mark Napier, Peter Cho, Ben Fry, Young Hae Chang, Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, Hansol Huh, Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern, Quantic Dream, Margarete Jahrmann and Max Moswitzer, Machinima selection.

From August 5 to August 20, 2006, Human Browser is performing at the Sydney Esquisse Art and Design Festival, curated by Simon Horauf & al. The idea was to direct the performance from Paris with a remote live video link and I had to rework the code a little bit to have the whole installation set up. On the picture you can see the actress, Beccy Iland, with a webcam on her shoulder and Wi-Fi laptop in her backpack (a nice idea by Simon which allowed to simplify everything). Thanks to the live video link between Sydney and Paris, I can see and hear what Beccy sees and hears in Sydney. I input keywords on my computer in Paris and the text-to-speech audio flow hijacked from Google arrives in Beccy's headset.

Extract (in English)

Feb. 2, 2006: Manon Kahle has become the first Female Browser. During four days, the visitors of the Transmediale festival in Berlin have fallen beneath her spell.

Extract 1 - Extract 2 - Extract 3 - Extract 4 - Extract 5 - Extract 6 (in English and German)



You can also watch here the "guided tour" of the exhibition by Human Browser.

Videocamera: Valérie Pavia / Florence Pélissier

The video was broadcast on the website of the french newspaper Libération.

Jan. 10, 2006, Human Browser, aka Jérôme Piques, tried to start up a conversation with the visitors of galerie Sollertis in Toulouse, during the opening of my solo exhibition.

Here are a few extracts: Extrait 1 - Extrait 2 - Extrait 3 - Extrait 4 - Extrait 5 (in French)

A l'époque ancienne les oracles étaient rendus par des vierges parce qu'elles étaient physiquement intactes et de la même nature qu'Artémis : c'était une disposition favorable pour garder le secret. "

Diodore de Sicile, XVI,26, Ier siècle av. J.-C.


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