Location: Toronto, ON
Program: Live-streaming event/performance (cancelled)
Duration: October 9 – 11, 2015
Cost of Work: $5000

“BABELVILLE 1” was a propositional work to allow individuals in Toronto and around the world to receive real-time representation of the experience of the 2015 meeting of the BABEL Working Group though an event-specific virtual private network.

Virtual private networks or VPNs are created by establishing online point-to-point connections through dedicated protocols and/or encryption; related VPN applications allow mobile and Ethernet or Wi-Fi enabled devices to receive data across shared or public data networks as if directly connected to a private network. The University of Toronto uses the application OpenVPN to manage its “UTORvpn” service, which provides off-site access to university-only resources for faculty, graduate students, and staff.

“BABELVILLE 1” would create an event-specific instance of the UTORvpn service, the BABELVILLE 1 VPN. The function of this new network would be limited to the moderation of access to a user-interface for simultaneous live-feeds all 2015 Working Group meeting proceedings and related events. Remote users of the BABELVILLE 1 VPN would be able to watch live video of conference presentations as well as POV recordings of conference events by utilizing their Internet connection, but with their devices virtually registering their location as simultaneous with that of the BABELVILLE 1 VPN server, in Toronto. In this way, “BABELVILLE 1” would realize geospatial equanimity among local and remote conference-goers—and therefore, conceptually, the entire BABEL Working Group—in spite of these individuals’ “in real life” locations.

A capsule summary is as follows:

“BABELVILLE 1” establishes direct, virtual, person-to-person aesthetic and intellectual connectivity for the BABEL Working Group for the duration of its 2015 meeting, accomplished through the use of a temporary infrastructure, itself utilizing a dedicated protocol.

Construction of the BABELVILLE  1 VPN was to be managed by HAHA with the assistance of University of Toronto IT staff. AV equipment would be staffed by volunteers managed by HAHA, using no less than four (4) Wi-Fi enabled, head- and tri-pod mounted “GoPro Hero” cameras or the equivalent.

In August 2015, this project was cancelled due to client lack of funds.