Abstract

“Time Capsule” is a work-experience that lies somewhere between a local eventinstallation, a site-specific work in which the site itself is both my body and a remote database, a simulcast on TV and the Web, and interactive webscanning of my body. The live component of the piece was realised on November 11, 1997, in the context of the exhibition “Arte Suporte Computador”, at the cultural centre Casa da Rosas, in Sao Paulo, Brazil. “Time Capsule” was carried live on the evening newscast of the TV station Canal 21 and on tape by two other TV stations (TV Manchete and TV Cultura). The webscast was transmitted by Casa das Rosas.The object that gives the piece its title is a microchip that contains a programmed identification number and that is integrated with a coil and a capacitor, all hermetically sealed in biocompatible glass. The temporal scale of the work is stretched between the ephemeral and the permanent; i.e., between the few minutes necessary for the completion of the basic procedure, the microchip implantation, and the permanent character of the implant. As with other underground time capsules, it is under the skin that this digital time capsule projects itself into the future