Performance Sophie Lavaud / Fred Forest

On 18th March at 5.30 p.m. (French time), as part of the 1999 Internet Festival (french and europeen one: the Fiesta), multimedia artists Fred Forest and Sophie Lavaud will be joined in matrimony. The ceremony will be a world-unique event combining virtual reality, the Internet and a physical site. The latter is located in the multimedia room at the Town Hall of Issy-les-Moulineaux just outside Paris and is normally used for interactive council meetings. This event is highly symbolic since it is their real wedding and will be a wonderful way to launch the Internet Festival which starts officially on the following day.

This unusual "cyber-wedding" will be conducted by André Santini, Mayor of Issy, member of Parliament and Vice President of the Assemblée Nationale. Some witnesses will be present with the couple while others will attend on-line from overseas. They include: Vint Cerf, one of the founders in the USA of the Internet (IP protocols), Jean-Michel Billaut co-president of AFI in Paris, Françoise Schmitt head of the Institut d'Etudes Supérieures de l'Art in Paris, Eduardo Kac a new technologies artist, professor at Chicago University and Christophe Charles, compositor, professor at Tsukuba University, Japon who will create a techno version of the "Marche Nuptiale".

The wedding ceremony will be broadcast live on Internet and will enable exchanges between witnesses from different continents to be displayed on a large screen. It will be also broadcast in the french and japanese Institut of Tokyo, in the Web-Bar of Paris and in the South Docks of Marseille. Everyone can send congratulations-messages by e-mail. Gifs and flowers can be bought on the wedding list of the 3 Suisses, hosted on the Internet site of the techno-wedding.

A virtual reality programme designed by Sophie Lavaud and Fred Forest, developed by IT engineer Bruno Herbelin with World Tool Kit software and modelled by the Duboi company on Silicon Graphics will be shown at the same time. During this programme, clones of the couple will react in real time to their movements and gestures.

The ceremony will be really a staged event produced by the two artists.





Schedule for the techno-wedding


- 16th and 17th March - setting up of the technical equipment, trials, run-through.

- 18th March - Satellite link tests must be completed by midday.

- 4.30 p.m. - The guests arrive.
- Guests with an invitation are asked to wait in the reception lobby where a large wall-screen displays coloured visuals and gives information about the forthcoming ceremony. Low-level background sound accompaniment.
- Only the audio-visual press is admitted to the media room for technical installations in specified places.

- 5.00 p.m. - People are now invited to enter the media room where the ceremony is to be held. Town Hall personnel shows people to their seats and makes sure they are evenly spread around the room. (A camera transmits images to Internet and to the wall-screen - shoulder-held camera).

-5.20 p.m. - An Internet master of ceremonies wearing a tailcoat takes up his position in the corner in front of the stage area with a VHS microphone. Throughout the ceremony his role is to make the different announcements for each stage of the event. (Images on Internet and on the wall-screen)

- 5.25 p.m. - The bride and groom and the mayor take their places. They are followed by the two witnesses. (Images on Internet and on the wall-screen).

- 5.30 p.m. - The ceremony begins according to the tradition of all civil weddings in France. Introductory speech from Mr André Santini, Mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux who addresses the bride and groom. (Images on Internet and on the wall-screen).

- 5.45 p.m. - Start-up of the virtual reality programme. (Virtual reality IT programme, sound and images on the screen of the room in real-time interaction with the participants: the Mayor, Sophie Lavaud, Fred Forest. On Internet the video images from the room continue).

- 6.00 p.m. - The Mayor asks for the 'I do' from Sophie Lavaud and Fred Forest. The scene passes simultaneously into a 3D space, the rings are exchanged, the register is signed by the couple and the witnesses.

- 6.10 p.m. - Eduardo Kac is brought on line by the Internet master of ceremonies who asks him a question to make sure he is there. He then speaks for 3 to 5 minutes at most. He is thanked briefly by Sophie Lavaud and Fred Forest, or the master of ceremonies.

- 6.15 p.m. - Next long-distance speech from Tokyo by the artist Christophe Charles in the same conditions.

- 6.20 p.m. - announcement for the display of congratulations E-mails on the wall-screen.

- 6.30 p.m. - The guests slowly make their way from the media room to a buffet which is provided by the town of Issy les Moulineaux for all present at the wedding.

For information and partnership proposals call: (33 1) 48 18 19 51


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