This
project, created for the inaugural French “Internet Fest”
(Fête de l’Internet), combines a symbolic (liminal)
suspension of time and a virtual around-the-world journey in one
hour in a festive rite of passage into the age of the digital global
village. It involved placing webcams in cities located in each of
the world’s 24 time zones. Beginning with a live shot of the
Arc de Triomphe in Paris, the camera in each location began transmitting
at precisely 12:00 p.m. on March 20. The very instant the clock
was about to strike 1:00 p.m., the image on the screen switched
over to the input of the camera in the next time zone to the west
thus allowing visitors to the project web site to “relive”
the same hour of the day throughout the 24-hour duration of the
event. The web site also offered people a number of thought-provoking
and fun ways to make use of their time away from time including
an online poll about the role time plays in their frenzied lives,
a means to send scanned outlines of their feet to a server in Guadeloupe
for a brief vacation, and a chance to buy extra time in increments
of 30 seconds, 1 minute, or 1 hour.