... and - as the cliché requires - the etoy servers collapsed under the massive traffic the article and discussion on slashdot.org (news for nerds) generated.
result: a lot of confused hackers ;-) some even think that this is a media hack / prank by etoy.

etoy.HAEFLIGER wrote:

hi, here's how it got there: Matthias Stürmer who works in our team at ETH booked an office tank (etoy.CONTAINER) for their hackontest end of September and announced it on /.
... He misplaced the link to the SARCOPHAGUS instead of a regular etoy tank. Google is one of their sponsors.
So this confusion created the PR frenzy without giving us the opportunity to really benefit, except for the traffic...

thats great! this viral data salad shows perfectly how memetic mutation can lead to crazy stories that are not at all intentional. nobody created this to trigger a hype. a link to the wrong web address ... the rest is distributed story telling, conspiracy theory and imagination. its all in there: dead bodies, drugs, hackers and even google!

fact is: etoy just wants to be nice and contributes a regular etoy.TANK to the event ;-)

i admit that the etoy.CONTEXT and our history probably fueled the whole madness: etoy - leaving reality behind since 1994.

actually we don't create art and code to confuse people. our stuff is just a bit closer to the edge of reality than most corporation's output. things sometimes get a bit out of  our control.

thank you for helping us grow!
agent zai, ceo etoy.CORPORATION

On Apr 22, 2008, at 12:22 PM, etoy.POL wrote:

I find it rather disturbing to get to know about such huge public involvement of etoy in the hacker community through /.

especially since it could involve finding dedicated contributors for the angel-app.

Wo genau ist die Verbindung zwischen einem Google-Projekt und etoy?

cheers,
-p

silvan.zurbruegg wrote:

Moin,
Die ganze story hier beschert uns seit gestern massiv traffic:
http://technocrat.net/d/2008/4/20/39812
etoy.com /missioneternity.org war gestern zeitweise nicht
erreichbar. Es beginnt zu bessern heute ...
g,s

TODAY! MoMA Modern Mondays
Monday, April 14 / Venue: MoMA New York ork, Titus 2 Theater (11 West 53 Street, New York, NY 10019)

No reserved seating, so get there early!

Greetings by Barbara London. Introduction by Zhang Ga, 15 minutes
Speakers: Fan Di’an, 20 minutes (translated on site) Alex Adriaansens, 15 minutes
Discussion 20 minutes Caroline A. Jones, Arthur Kroker, Erkki Huhtamo and Jordan CrandallModerated by Mike Stubbs
Q and A 10 minutes

Tuesday, April 15, all day in Tishman Auditorium, Parsons The New School for Design, 66 W 12th St.
Starting at 9:30am, running through 5pm. Open to all, no charge.

Featured speakers/artists include: Caroline Jones, Miao Xiaochun, Sissel Tolaas, etoy.ZAI, Erkki Huhtamo, Kurt Hentschlager, Chico Macmurtrie, Mariana Rondon, Jordan Crandall, Luc Courchesne, Marek Walczak, Friedrich Kirschner, Arthur Kroker, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Kim Machan, Bengt Sjölén, Li Zhenhua

This is a rare opportunity to hear from a top group of leading thinkers/makers in the realm of new media art. There will be four panel
discussions, with presentations from a slew of top artists.

Later, in the evening, there will be a gathering at Eyebeam at 8pm.
For more info, see http://www.mediartchina.org/events/newyorkmoma

VIDEO ONLINE NOW!

(SPANISH version below)

DR. TIMOTHY LEARY'S AFTER LIFE CEREMONY No. 2
Soundtrack by TIM & PUMA MIMI

Today the LEARY TERMINUS II, which was produced on February 14th in Madrid, was successfully inserted into the MISSION ETERNITY SARCOPHAGUS.




Dr. Timothy Leary passed away at the age of 75 on May 31, 1996 in California. He qualified as a test-pilot for MISSION ETERNITY with his reputation as a pioneer of the information age and his last book "Design for Dying".

Leary left the art group etoy a massive body of personal digital footage (photos, video, text, sketches, research papers, etc.) and his mortal remains (ashes) for experiments. In a series of totally four performances his ashes are incorporated into art objects, so called LEARY TERMINUS (I-IV). Each TERMINUS is a bridge that links the physical and digital remains of MISSION ETERNITY PILOTS.

TODAY at exactly 19:35 the LEARY TERMINUS II, an updated TEST VERSION by Adrien Rovero and Augustin Scott de Martinville, was plugged into the left SARCOPHAGUS-WALL. The hybrid between sculpture, cargo-container, organizational art, archive, mortal-remains-storage-solution, is a digital memorial for up to one thousand PILOTS. The SARCOPHAGUS connects tangible and non-tangible existence - biomass and data - and is the moving "resting place" and access point after physical death and cremation.




The digital data of Thimothy Leary is stored in the ARCANUM CAPSULE. This digital portraits as well as the SARCOPHAGUS are designed to travel planet earth forever together with millions of other cargo containers and TCP/IP Particles on the Internet.

Integrated into the immersive display of the SARCOPHAGUS each TERMINUS assumes the role of a dead pixel. The mortal remains replace the light and the displayed information. A unique RFID tag, identifies and assigns each TERMINUS to its corresponding ARCANUM CAPSULE online. A status LED on each TERMINUS indicates visitor traffic, the back-up status and distribution factor of the digital ARCANUM CAPSULE. In case of risk of data loss the LED and a very minimal sound system generate attention and call for help.

The key to the long-term project MISSION ETERNITY is a DISTRIBUTED DATA-STORAGE based on millions of computers of internet users - so called MISSION ETERNITY ANGELS.

This is just the beginning of an infinite voyage. Leaving reality behind...

--------SPANISH VERSION------------

CEREMONIA N° 2 DE LA VIDA POST-MORTEM DEL DR. TIMOTHY LEARY
con actuación en directo de TIM & PUMA MIMI

Hoy el LEARY TERMINUS II, que fue producido el pasado 14 de Febrero en Madrid, será insertado en el MISSION ETERNITY SARCOPHAGUS.

El Dr. Timothy Leary murió en California el 31 de mayo de 1996 a la edad de 75 años. Fue seleccionado como piloto de pruebas del MISSION ETERNITY por su reputación como pionero de la era de la información y por su conocido libro "Design Dying"

Leary dejó al colectivo de artistas etoy un cuerpo masivo de información digital (fotos, vídeos, textos, bocetos, sketches, artículos de investigación científica, etc...) y sus restos mortales (cenizas). A lo largo de una serie de cuatro performances las cenizas de Leary están siendo incorporadas a objetos artísticos, llamados LEARY TERMINUS (I-IV).

Este TERMINUS es un puente que une los restos físicos y digitales de los pilotos del MISSION ETERNITY.

El TERMINUS está conectado al SARCOPHAGUS. Este híbrido entre escultura, contenedor de carga, arte organizacional, archivo, almacén de restos mortales, es un homenaje multimedia a más de mil pilotos. El SARCOPHAGUS conecta la existencia tangible y la intangible (biomasa y datos). Es un lugar en movimiento para el "último descanso" que sirve como punto de acceso después de la muerte física y la cremación.

Los datos digitales de Thimothy Leary son almacenados en la ARCANUM CAPSULE. Este retrato digital junto con el SARCOPHAGUS están diseñados para viajar por el planeta Tierra por siempre junto con millones de otros contenedores de carga y partículas de TCP/IP en Internet.

Incorporado a la pantalla del SARCOPHAGUS cada TERMINUS asume el papel de un píxel muerto. Los restos mortales sustituyen a la luz y la información mostrada. Una única marca RFID, identifica y asigna cada TERMINUS a su correspondiente ARCANUM CASULE on line. Un LED en cada TERMINUS indica el status del tráfico de visitantes, del back-up y de la distribución del ARCANUM CAPSULE digital. En caso de riesgo de pérdida de datos el LED y un sistema de sonido minimal genera atención y pide ayuda.

La clave del proyecto MISSION ETERNITY a largo plazo es una unidad distribuida de almacenamiento de datos basada en millones de ordenadores de usuarios de Internet, también llamados MISSION ETERNITY ANGELS.

Conviértete en un ANGEL on line y ayuda a asegurar la vida digital post-mortem del Dr. Timothy Leary y otros pilotos que le seguirán en las próximas décadas: www.missioneternity.org

Este es tan sólo el comienzo hacia un viaje infinito. Deja atrás a la realidad...

In their Friday edition, the French daily features a three-page article about MISSION ETERNITY - by Marie Lechner

Articel PDF

PRESS PICTURE DOWNLOADSITE

etoy.CREW / etoy.AGENTS in tokyo
6 etoy.CORE-AGENTS, the crew that established the etoy.NIPPON-BRANCH in Tokyo to enter the asia market.

2001, copyrights: hiroshi masuyama

for publishing and copy rights get in contact with the etoy.MANAGEMENT. etoy has conditions under which it licenses material.

During the past years, the internal blog based on the Flux-CMS became the main information hub for internal communications at etoy. The public feed was technically separated and handled by another tool (with the consequence that everybody involved required knowledge about two systems). The new setup - again based on the Flux-CMS - allows to maintain the public-, as well as the internal blog from within the same system. The content gets delivered according to simple state and permission rules that are manually adjustable by the users (which is a default feature of Flux-CMS btw. ).