Not a long time ago, many political cultural resistance movements, especially those with a leftist point of view, operated on the belief that change was possible only by a societal consensus prepared in a proper distribution of information. The Internet in its present form could be viewed as the reified "networking" metaphor proliferating in the 60ies and 70ies. In the days of digital (r)evolution, strategies of cultural dissent are much more fashionable in resistance groups. The focus is no longer information, but the disturbance/destruction of information channels. etoy, a digital "reality emigration" project which won the Golden Nica at the prix ars electronica this year, clearly belongs to the latter faction. Baldheaded and provocatively donned in orange bomber jackets, etoy.AGENTS Brainhard (Public Relations) and Esposto (Sound Coder) explain the etoy.PROGRAM.

I watched etoy.MEMBERS during yesterday's ars electronica opening and saw a number of people react quite strongly to your uniforms ...

The uniforms are our way of expressing a digital feeling. etoy.AGENTS are interchangeable elements of a digital program. An old lady asked me yesterday if we come from another planet. - I told her, no, we come from the Internet.

Could these reactions also be triggered off by associations with a kind of adolescent, self-righteous, militaristic and remotely violent boy culture that some people have come to resent?

We don't really care. Our corporate identity is our content. We consciously use the provocative power of our public appearances and we have been successful with it. Quite similar to our net action "digital hijack" where we kidnapped some 600.000 users in four month, reactions to etoy are either positive or negative, nothing in between. That's how we want it.

Do you believe in political dissent?

We try to disturb conventional information channels and in that sense, etoy is a political group. But we do not have a political message. Our message is our lifestyle in our new "Heimat", the Internet.

Are you dissatisfied with your bodies?

Yes. We have mentally emigrated to the Internet. The central nerve system is www.etoy.com. The seven members of etoy are spread all over Europe with usually not more than one physical meeting in a year. The webserver is the place of our existence, the body is not important, it must be uniformed. From the physical point of view, it does not matter who is who.

The difference is only in the genotype, not in the phenotype?

That's correct. The difference is in the code only. Can we read a few etoy.LIVESTYLE statements to you?

Sure. etoy.

An non-material platform. The virtual stage for the new traveling generation. - There is no left or right, there is no up or down, there is no way back. - etoy. Always on-line and sometimes lost. Run, jump, shoot, shout for the digital generation ...

In what sense does the future hold a radical promise for you?

The future will be hardcore. We are preparing for what is coming. We are digital guides leaving the doors open behind us so others can follow. We are ready for the future.

What is your relationship to future? Obsession?

If you look at what we do, it must be obsession. We feel very uncomfortable with what is now.

What is now?

A difficult question - one of the reasons why we are lost sometimes.

Reinhard Puntigam