In the installation The Messenger, email messages sent from around the world are received by a computer and spelled out, one letter at a time over three fanciful telegraph receivers. The central receiver, a circular array of talking chamber-pots, speaks out the letters in twenty six different voices. Another telegraph receiver consists of 26 dancing skeletons. Each wears a tiny poncho emblazoned with a letter of the alphabet. When each letter of a message is activated, the skeleton jumps, producing a dance macabre as the email messages roll off the internet. The third telegraphic receiver is a line of 26 antique glass jars, each filled with an electrolyte and holding a pair of metal electrodes, one of them shaped like a letter of the alphabet. The electrical currents cause the electrodes to change from shiny metallic to black alternately and to produce hydrogen bubbles.

At kim?, american artist Paul DeMarinis looks into our increasing reliance on electricity as our dominant medium of communication.

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