Digital Natives is an exhibition experiment about and in collaboration with young people who have grown in a digital age. The project explores the culture and identity of these young people and experiments with new way of communicating this culture in exhibition contexts. The Digital Natives exhibition opens at the Aarhus Art Building on december 1.

The exhibition is the culmination of a long-term research effort involving a group of young people. The core of the exhibition is a collection of digital material from these young peoples lives in the form of Facebook updates, text messages and pictures. In the exhibition space, visitors are offered various ways of exploring these materials through interactive installations.

Google My Head

In the Google My Head installation, the audience is encouraged to browse in a repository of seven Digital Natives Facebook updates, pictures, SMS messages and videos on a multi-touch table to reflect upon their own relationship to digital nativesness. While browsing in the large amount of digital material and choosing digital fragments of special interest, the audience can upload their own opinion about Digital Natives. The statements made by audiences are displayed as an integrated part of the exhibition.

Portraits

'Portraits' is an interactive video installation that invites participants to explore the world of a girl and her passion for books and a boy and his fondness for photographing. The films were created by two young girls from the Digital Natives project, giving a personal glimpse into the dreams and self-representations of the young generation. The movement of the audience controls the timing and selection of clips, playback speed and coloring of the visuals, ranging from subtle movements to fast-paced energetic experience. ‘Portraits’ reflects and challenges the relationship between the visitor and the digital natives, leaving the participants with an impression of the digital natives’ passions.

Digital Sea

The digital sea is a floor-projected installation in which audiences can explore digital materials from various media and mobile platforms, representing the Digital Natives in the project. Facebook updates, photos, SMS messages and videos float in the sea, and the audience can activate fragments according to their interest. Chosen materials are enlarged and related materials surface with them, representing the infinite grid of digital fragments and connections in the daily lives of the digital generations.

DJ Station

DJStation is an interactive and audiovisual installation based on a tangible user interface with fiducial tracking. The DJ Station allows the user to interact with the musical universe of the seven digital natives involved in the project, while getting first hand experience with the remix and mash-up cultures that are hallmarks of the digital native generation.