"Etoy" is a slightly anarchistic site. Its visual aesthetics rub some people the wrong way; to others, this is a sure sign of full-fledged counterculture. And indeed it is a counterculture that "etoy" promotes. No smooth linearly arranged homepages, but a merry-go-round one tends to get lost in.

THE NAME: etoy

A random output generator was used to list 2000 four letter words according to certain criteria, attractive syllables / letters / words provided the basic material for creating name suggestions. In a 15-hour IRC conference, the Crew made a selection based on aesthetic features, electronic-toy, endo-toy, energy-toy: automatically resulting associations.

CORPORATE IDENTITY

In keeping with the program, the seven etoy.AGENTS make their appearance in the same look, and the same tools are always used: this principle emphasizes how the etoy.MEMBERS are interchangeable, everyone is everyone, everywhere, everything, leaving reality behind ... Collaboration within the etoy.CREW is oriented to the aesthetic and working methods of a Formel-1 team.

THE LOOK / ACCESSOIRES

The orange crew jacket is the identifying feature No. 1. Standard overalls and a black suit are required items in the luggage of all etoy.AGENTS, just like the hand-held computer Psion, Serie 33 for ensuring minimal communication (etoy.DUTYCHECK -> http://www.etoy.com/dutycheck) and the etoy.BUSINESSCARDS (plastic cards with a magnetized strip for identification).

THE PROGRAM

run / jump / shoot and shout... for the "digital generation" !

communication and production via Internet, reality emigration, digitale existence.

flashing into the future!

The limitations of the digital world are scanned and extended through the excessive and associative use of technology.

always online - sometimes lost

"DIE HEIMAT": http://www.etoy.com/

The etoy.TANKSYSTEM, which consists of containers and connecting pipelines, illustrates the spatial paradox (the complete elimination of intermediate spaces) in web space and thus becomes a metaphor, which may be used to establish (alleged) orientation. Our immaterial communication environment on the web provides the basis for the transmission, transformation, destination and exposition of originating and existing data.

THE TANK IS DEFINED BY ITS CONTENTS.
http://www.etoy.com/
"Digital Entertainment Actions" are designed to use the basic structure and the special tools of the TANKSYSTEM (www.etoy.com) and to further their development. The aim is to successfully link different streams in digital environments: sounds, visuals, architecture and software robots collaborate with disco-triphop, image streams and ASCII codes. A non-material platform: the virtual stage for the new travelling generation!

With an action lasting four months, etoy demonstrated the "space" behind the popular interfaces of the World Wide Web. The weak points in the system and the twilight zone of the medium formed the place of action. Search-server databases became a stage for self-presentation. etoy.SOFTWARE AGENTS controlled the systematic illusion and hijack of hapless net-travellers: 250.000 art-hostages in March 1996. "The technology-tourist is evasively assimilated into a trap configured by the etoy.GANG. In this labyrinth, the fascination of manipulating and hacking the search systems becomes The Story." The "digital hijack" project was terminated after the 6oo.oooth hijacking, because the etoy.486-WEBSERVERS could no longer cope with the extreme amount of traffic (as many as 17.000 users every day). The software agents were officially withdrawn from the search engines at the end of July 1996 ... some of them could not be rescued ...The scene of the crime is open to the public and is still frequently visited by many inquisitive users:

http://www.hijack.org/
http://www.hijack.org/
smashing the boring style of established electronic traffic channels, changing directions ...