I think the way of commucnication system right now would change somehow like policy change or whatever in the future. but in a way, the change in the communicaiton system has been shifting towards image based one, beyond words or languages, through the computer network.

Joan: But I think especially the internet is really language based..

Dirk: Code… URL…

Joan: E-mail and html so I don’t think in that sense it changes and to communicate with images is not specific for the net, photography or advertisement are also ‘worldwide’ .

That’s what I think about your works which reflects what you’ve just said about the “language base” communication in the nowadays society. In our society music, graphic or anything is explained with words in the magazine, for example. And people read it and they act like they understand what it is. Even the communication network system has been developed, the value of art works tends to be distributed through words or languages. But your work seems a lot more straight, in a way of representing works, without words, that people will view a lot more straightly…

Dirk: Yes, guidelines for our work are “No content, No story,”

Joan: “Tech No logic”.

Dirk: “Material digital”, because we do programming ourselves, we emphasize the physical quality of digital systems, almost clean. A blinking screen is material. %Undo %Select %Delete %Send are real properties with real consequences.

Joan: We’re interested in the history of computer images especially the first games, drawing programs…

Dirk: The fast evolution of CPU power has created a digital junkyard. Digital imagery is related to the power of the chips. There is no software. The new chips are on the edge of photorealistic 3D games which confuse with reality, like hypercinema.

Joan: But there are still these Tamagochi-like games which can connect into dreamcast or playstation, really ‘drawn on very big pixels’ like, in a way very primitive, opposite to 3D realism. Gradually all these possibilities evolve to be netcasted, to blend with chat and on-line games. Like telegram, e-mail, html, games are just signals.

Dirk: …on slow modems you see the code.html being dumped on your screen.

Do those things that you just talked about “signals” relate to the reason why there are not much information about Jodi? It seems that there are no interviews, or profiles like that.

Dirk: [www.rhizome.org/query]

What is the purpose coming to Japan?

Dirk: Well we have some friends in Tokyo and our participation on Gasbook#5, made us curious about ‘digital wonderland Japan’…

Joan: It seems like for many years we talked about “maybe one day we visit Japan” and now we’re here with no specific reason. [%Bookmarks]

JODI gave me a comment on their participation in Gasbook5. They are interested in the interface formed with many folders which is similar to the interface of desktops on the computer.

Recently JODI is working on OSS.JODI.ORG and games. A game titled ‘CTRL-SPACE’ is a Multi-User Space in which the participants can extract each other. For this you need QUAKE1 and CTRL-SPACE, see the preview site [ctrl-space.c3.hu].

I guess this game is also related to the way of representing their art works under the guidelines of ‘No content, No story and Material digital’ as they said in the interview.
Please check out CTRL-SPACE site after saving all important documents.