Since the mid-80's the artist has been living in Nicaragua, Japan, Tibet and the Internet, making videos, films, installations and internet-projects which explore the surface of reality and the "heartbeat" behind it. Her works have been awarded prizes and exhibited internationally in such places as the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Reina Sofia Museum, Madrid, the ICA, London, the Rotterdam International Filmfestival, and the Venice Biennale.

Merel Mirage's Poem Navigator seems to be a rather modest project--dedicated to decoding the origins of just one short Chinese poem.

The history of the "Poem Navigator" is that of a casual encounter. According to the introduction to the project, Mirage was fascinated when she first heard the poem--words that offered no meaning to her beyond whimsical tones, unexpectedly changing their rhythms. She went to a Chinese restaurant in her neighborhood, and asked the cook about the poem. He told her that it was written in 754 AD by Li Po, a poet from the Tang dynasty, and wrote the characters down for her, with black ink on a white McDonalds napkin.

At first disappointed to find that the poem was "just an ordinary love story," Mirage was fascinated by the symbols, each of which seemed to be a story in itself, and started a journey to the roots of the poem's characters.

The "Poem Navigator" allows users to take this journey on their own. Visitors to the website find each line of the poem and its characters embedded in a frame-within-a-frame structure; they can explore the multiple meanings of the pictograms and the context for each line.

The simple elegance of the navigator provides a perfect frame for the beauty of each of the Chinese characters enhancing their magic. Readers can unravel multiple layers of meaning, which gradually evolve into a fuller understanding of a tiny little piece of encoded meaning. For some readers, Li Po's little poem may ultimately turn out to be a more fascinating magic sorcerer-code than Nanoscript.

Poem:"Spring Thoughts" by Li Po (China, 754 AD)
Idea and Realisation:Merel Mirage
Produced at:The KHM Academy of Media Arts,Cologne.
With the support of:Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Promotion Fund.
Graphic assistance:Chris Ganter
Modern Chinese characters:Ms. Mukai (Tokyo),Yu Xiao Dong (Tibet),Mr. Fang (Cologne)
Thanks to: Art Society, Dana Linsen, research assistance, Anselm Weidmann. Rudolf Opalla, Oliver Wrede, Detlev Frenken