project description

Moving through the city streets with a video scanner reveals a hidden layer of personal fragments and stories which are broadcast by the private owners of surveillance cameras. The accumulation of these autonomous yet synchronous acts contributes to an invisible ad-hoc network of media permeating the socially codified spaces of our urban environments: the café, the apartment building, the store, the parking lot, and the street. Life: a user's manual is a shared experience in visualizing the invisible. Together with the participants, Michelle Teran walks through Berlin streets with a wireless surveillance camera scanner and broadcasts the images on a TV monitor. (Berlin Walk version, February 4 2005)
 

archive.transmediale.de/05/page/detail/detail.0.projects.242.2.html (transmediale website archive)

related text

Michelle Teran's performance Life: a user's manual was nominated for its political intervention and the experimental risk it takes. Her exploration of public and private space makes a comment on the use of surveillance cameras in contemporary urban settings. The jury was convinced by the act of subverting existing surveillance tactics by transmitting the cameras footage to the public. (transmediale.05 jury comment)

related links

• project site: ubermatic.org/life
  Berlin walk: ubermatic.org/life/berlin.html 
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image credits

[01] - [14] Michelle Teran: Life: a user's manual, Berlin walk, transmediale.05, photos: Jonathan Gröger
[15] Michelle Teran: Life: a user's manual, Berlin walk map, transmediale.05
[16] Michelle Teran: Life: a user's manual, Berlin walk, transmediale.05