Vapor Trails of Europe (2010)

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Within a few years, global data traffic has exploded on all levels and in all forms of media. The cultural heritage of Europe increasingly becomes a fiction and dissolves in networks, on circuit paths and traffic routes. It reappears elsewhere, connected with foreign data and other traditions, as a new life form.

Vapor Trails of Europe picks up this thought and continues it by literally transporting condensates of European culture into the orbit. The project is alien productions' contribution to the project mur.sat, a small satellite fed and operated by artists only. For an estimate period of up to three months, mur.sat circulates around the earth on an altitude of 310 kilometers and unfolds its artistic activities, before burning up upon entering the atmosphere.

For Vapor Trails of Europe alien productions collect fragments of European acoustic culture. Contributions by other artists and proposals by users on line and the audience on site are included in the collection. For Kunstradio's contribution to the Euroradio Concert Series alien productions lay out the collected fragments, and then condense them into sound packages to fit the satellite in a one-hour live radio performance at the ORF Funkhaus on 7 December, 2010. The performance is streamed live to the EBU satellite-network. The resulting acoustic condensate then will be sent to outer space with mur.sat. Recipients with suitable equipment, wherever they are, also have the ability to receive it, process it and beam it back aboard the satellite. Thus, Vapor Trails of Europe is disseminated parallel via two unequal channels: the strong, accomplished and reliable EBU satellite, and its small, alternative, puckish brother mur.sat.

The performance was recorded and broadcast on 9 January 2011 on ORF OE1 Kunstradio.