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Ponton/Van Gogh TV «Piazza virtuale»
Ponton/Van Gogh TV, «Piazza virtuale», 1992
© Ponton/Van Gogh TV
The 1990 demo version of the interactive music programme ‘Rap em higher' is shown here. Users could play synthesizers and digitally controlled musical instruments via telephone keypads. Four participants could thus play music together; in addition, there were four microphone lines allowing viewers to put to the test their vocal talents.


 Ponton/Van Gogh TV
«Piazza virtuale»

Artists and technicians from Austria and Germany have been working together as Van Gogh TV since 1986 in the Ponton European Media Art Lab. Some of their members developed joint projects from as early as 1979 in the Minus Delta T group. 'Piazza Virtuale' is an interactive television project that could be received all over Europe via 4 satellites for 100 days during documenta IX in 1992. Visitors to documenta could beam themselves in via videophones and cameras that had been permanently installed in Kassel and other European cities to the live broadcast called 'Piazza Virtuale'. It was possible to use telephone, fax or modem to dial into the broadcast from home. The aim of the project was to transform the mass medium of television into an interactive medium that reverses the relationship of one broadcaster and many receivers.