CoworkSuperheroes

A short story

Ten years ago we were trying to hack the interwebs by showing our favorite shows and movies from a Windows XP computer directly on a late 90s TV set. We weren't doing it only because we had no money to spend on DVDs, but also because global distribution chains were most of the times leaving our country out of their maps thus making it really hard to find anything good to see.

We were using a five-meter long stereo audio cable. The left channel was used for the video signal, while the right channel for a merged mono audio signal. Sometimes the signals got interrupted so Windows jumped directly from dual screen to single monitor.

It was an amazing step forward: to be able to watch "digital TV" on an analog TV screen.

Internet piracy was booming in Romania and we were able to watch almost any old, new and sometimes unreleased show, documentary or feature film. No more pirated VHS tapes, no more buying copied DVDs from the flea market, just us and the wonderful world of torrents streamed across the room into a 62 cm cathode ray tube screen.

The screen, connected with the world wide web, became a gateway to global knowledge, art and culture without us even knowing about it.

A few months ago we were thinking about building a video installation capable to emit thoughts from all of our co-workers here in REO. And what better way to give back to our trusted old CRT/analog TV than to use it to stream some light-propelled wisdom, maybe for the last time.

CoworkSuperheroes

Cowork Superheroes is a video installation built with 27 screens, 20 DVD players, 2 Playstations 2, 3 computers and 1 Raspberry Pi, that's hosting a thought conversation between 25 co-workers who are imagining their superhero projects.