                                           __                       __
                                          /\ \                     /\ \
 __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __  __       \ \ \___      __      ___\ \ \/'\
/\ \/\ \/\ \/\ \/\ \/\ \/\ \/\ \/\ \       \ \  _ `\  /'__`\   /'___\ \ , <
\ \ \_/ \_/ \ \ \_/ \_/ \ \ \_/ \_/ \       \ \ \ \ \/\ \L\.\_/\ \__/\ \ \\`\
 \ \___x___/'\ \___x___/'\ \___x___/'        \ \_\ \_\ \__/.\_\ \____\\ \_\ \_\
  \/__//__/   \/__//__/   \/__//__/    _______\/_/\/_/\/__/\/_/\/____/ \/_/\/_/
                                      /\______\
                                      \/______/

www_hack is a creative intervention onto specific web sites. A script installed on the host site allows all visitors to a single page to observe each others mouse movements at any one time. On a technical level, the work is based on a javascript that contacts a server where all the individual mouse positions are stored, displaying all the cursors in ‘real-time’. Users experience the virtual presence of others, as controlled by a server.

Web platforms are being promoted as a privileged arena for emerging communities and open collaborations. ‘www_hack’, on the other hand, aims at exposing the internal architecture of the web as well as the protocols that reflect a server client hegemony in which users are separated from information and from each other. The project demonstrates that the server-client relationship is not open as such, nor free from power structures. Indeed, all clients are subject to the ‘dictatorship’ of a server which is intrinsic to web architecture.

In the wild

www_hack has been seen in the wild in the following sites:

* CHELSEA Gallery Space, New York, US
Cancelled!

* NEW LIFE SHOP Gallery, Berlin, DE
Cancelled!

* Antisocial notworking, Plymouth, UK
[April 30-present, 2008]

* Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, UK
[April 30-May 30, 2008]

* Futuresonic Festival, Manchester, UK
[May 1-5, 2008]

* webcra.sh, Doordrecht, NL
[May 25 - present, 2008]

* 0508, San Juan, PR
[May 29 - 30 August, 2008]

* Observatori, Valencia, ES
[June 6-29, 2008]

* V2_: Institute for the Unstable Media, Rotterdam, NL
[May-June, 2009]

Tecnhical description

www_hack is a script installed in a host web site that is loaded to a visitor computer assuming that it has javascript enable (all major browsers have javascript enabled by default). The script runs in a loop and every half-second sends the visitor cursor position to a server. In return it gets the cursor’s position of all other visitors which are stored in a database. The cursor movement is simulated in the host web site by moving an image identical to the one used by the visitor’s operative system.

Grab the source

www_hack source code is available under GNU GPL. The current version requires PHP5 or above, MySQL and Apache. The installation instructions are provided with the code, downloadable here.

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www_hack at V2_.

www_hack at webcra.sh.

www_hack at Arnolfini gallery.