What is Gen?
Gen is the pronunciation for the Chinese character , which means an arrangement or set up. As the title for a multimedia interactive computer project, it is used to converge several metaphors about the internet and the underwater cave system. In Chinese military terms, different Gens refer to different battle arrays in which the units are arranged in deliberate quantity, location and timing according to their own attribution. The extension of this definition also describes the disposition of the Feng-shei trap which is a kind of labyrinth developed from the ancient oracle theory. The elements in the Gen location are disguised seamlessly to confuse the intruders and eventually will capture or eliminate them. Like Gen, the underwater cave system is extremely complex and fatal and the branching map sometimes even looks like a net. The great sense of disorientation and danger the diver faces in the cave makes it a perfect Gen although it was made by nature.

The interactive Gen
The computer project, developed in Macromedia Director, is carried out in a game like situation which let the viewer enters the program as an underwater cave explorer. While experiencing the cave system movie he or she has to choose the path to progress by using one’s judgment on the map and the orienting tool provided by the program. On each step, the viewer can click on the “discovery” button to play a section of movie composed by fragmented close-ups from World Wide Web sites. (Presumably the viewer does not know the source of the materials and will find hints from the movie to associate with the connections.) The ultimate goal for the cave exploring scenario is to search for a lost depth gauge in the system.

From the underwater net to the Internet
In the cave, divers are guided by the line they reel in and the need to be “online” is a life-or-death concern. In real life, being online is also more and more important. The new revolution in the way of communicating and generating knowledge makes the internet activity a crucial experience in this era. The World Wide Web feeds us with endless information twenty four hours a day and its system is essentially one of the biggest “net” in the world, but it sometimes confuses me too. The excessive information makes it easy to get lost and the links sometimes mislead the searcher, not to mention the time consumed on junk materials. It seems to me that the Web is another immense Gen.

The “Net-scape”
The experience has a lot of plusses and minuses on debate, and it is part of daily life now. This project is mostly my response to it, and not necessary a judgment. The feeling, when I pick up the camera and shoot for the screen, is like making a travelers log, but instead of landscape, I am shooting the “netscape.” Since I can stroll around the sites and open different doors, check out goods and information, talk to people, even go shopping, in a sense these are awesome “real” places that are worth a snapshot. On the other hand, when I montaged them together, I thought a lot about those pioneers such as Hanna Hoch and Bruce Conner, with admiration about the way they appropriate their contemporary materials and characterize the time with great authenticity and deep thought. After all, the search for the gauge is a process to find a measure of where we are in this big wide Gen.