DissemiNETion

DissemiNETion can be described as an online documentary, in which visitors are invited to add stories themselves from their own personal history. The effect of memory and the experience of remembering are reflected visually by the transactions ‘deposit’, ‘withdrawal’ and ‘loss’. In the end, DissemiNETion will become a collection of stories in which visitors can roam or search specifically for terms or themes with a search engine. The results of the search engine offer an insight into the mechanisms of the World Wide Web. The aim is to create a diaspora of stories on the Net. Sawad Brooks has been making Net-Art – art for Internet – for several years. He earlier worked with Beth Stryker on a variety of projects, in which they were especially interested in the accessibility of new technologies for different communities. With DissemiNETion, Brooks and Stryker want to use the technology of the Internet to collect and distribute stories that would otherwise be lost – stories from communities that normally do not have much access to computers and the technological world they represent. The first material for the web site comes from Pro Busqueda de los Niños from El Salvador. This non-profit organisa-tion collects statements from families that lost their children in the civil war. (http://www.cgrg.ohio-state.edu/wexner/thefold/disseminet)