"Baby Play" premiers at NTT/InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo A new
Net installation by Shu Lea Cheang

June 22-July 29, 2001

For more information about "Baby Play," please visit:
http://www.ntticc.or.jp

To participate in "Baby Play," please visit:
http://babyplay.ntticc.or.jp

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"Baby Play" interlinks a large-scale foosball field ("Baby Play" is
derived from the French name for foosball, "baby foot") with the Net as
a ME-motion (memory-emotion) playing field. "Baby Play" is installation
1.0 of Cheang's "Locker Baby" project (2001-2002), which features three
Net installations based on a fictional scenario set in the year 2030.
Produced by the Dolly Polly Transgency (DPT) with genes extracted from
deep sea pearls, the clone generation of Locker Babies are born out of
Tokyo coin lockers and entrusted to retrieve our collective deposits of
ME-motion data on the Net.

"Baby Play" is comprised of an immense foosball playing field (15m x
7.5m), 22 inflatable designer locker babies (140cm in height), 8 playing
rods (5m in length), a large-scale projection and a "Baby Play" website.
As local gallery participants engage in a game of foosball, the image
of the ball bouncing in the actual playing field is sent to the
ME-motion virtual field on the Net. The movement of the ball in the
actual playing field is tracked by 36 touch sensors and sent to the
"Baby Play" website where the virtual moving ball retrieves sound and
text files as ME-motion data. The public is invited to utilize the 36
virtual lockers for data deposit and to play ball on the Net.

Cheang, whose work netlinks physical and online spaces, has exhibited at
Walker Art Center (Bowling Alley 1995), ICC Biennal (Buy One Get One,
1997) and created the Guggenheim Museum's first web based art project,
entitled "Brandon." (1998-1999). Baby Play marks her return to
large-scale net installations after the release of her Japanese
cyberporn feature film, "I.K.U." (2000).

A set of 36 essential sound data based on Ryu Murakami's 1980's novel
"Coin Locker Babies" is contributed by Atau Tanaka.