BROADBANDIT HIGHWAY
self-generative road movie for ambient televison

Manu Luksch & Ilze Black (2001-2006)
duration: c. 42,000 hrs

The broadbandits use java scripts to hijack video streams from traffic surveillance webcams around the world, and montage these live sequences to make a real-time 24/7 road movie, re-broadcast on television.

ambientTV.NET premiered Broadbandit Highway on the in-house television channel of the Great Eastern Hotel, London, for the ‘Please Disturb Me’ art show (March 2001). When the artists were asked to chose a space for their piece, they chose one of the television channels accessible in each hotel room. This channel showed hundreds of live traffic surveillance streams to a soundtrack performed live at the hotel by Kate Rich and Sneha Solanki. The bandits of the information highway had unleashed their java scripts, which identified the traffic cam stream, resized it to fullscreen television format and then re-broadcasted it on TV.

The live, self-generative version of Broadbandit Highway was online at www.ambienttv.net/broadbandit until the last traffic surveillance webcam from the original list of web addresses went offline. The movie was ongoing without repetition of sequences for about 5 years.

Watch the beginning of Broadbandit Highway as streaming video.

Links
[concept] [streaming video: the first 44 minutes] [team, shows, stills] [statement] [the beginning @Great Eastern Hotel London 2001] [the end@Witte de With Rotterdam 2006]