JODI is the collective name for the artists Joan Heemskerk (the Netherlands) and Dirk Paesmans (Belgium). Operating from Barcelona, these pioneers of Internet art have in the past years been awarded virtually every international prize for their work. They won first prizes in WebContest in Sao Paulo, Transmedia in Berlin, Videokunstpreis of ZKM in Karlsruhe, Webby Awards in San Francisco and FCCM in Montreal. JODI participated in Documenta-X in Kassel, ISEA in Chicago, Lab-7 in Warsaw, WorldWideVideoFestival in Amsterdam and SONAR in Barcelona. CTRL-SPACE was the first solo presentation of JODI in the Netherlands.

CTRL-SPACE is a network-game available and playable on the Internet. It is a deconstructed version of the familiar Quake 1, making use of the Quake navigation system but looking completely different from the Gothic style of the original Quake 1. At MU’s request, CTRL-SPACE was converted into a local version, allowing visitors to play the game together on-site. CTRL-SPACE was presented by means of a number of computers, video beamers and projection screens. Seated on a carpet, the visitors could navigate through the work or play the game with other players by moving the mouse.

The exhibition was interactive: the visitor selected the projected images. CTRL-SPACE showed headspinning, radical, black-and-white‘op-art’-like images. The soundtrack accompanying the wanderings of the mouse through the virtual spaces, provided experienced players with clues, but worsened the chaos in the heads of the non-adepts. Apart from CTRL-SPACE, JODI also presented existing and new work on two computers. Concurrently with the presentation in MU, JODI held a workshop with TUE students and gave a guest lecture for students of the Design Academy Eindhoven.