Keepalive is Aram Bartholl’s fake hollow boulder in the woods of Neuenkirchen, Germany. It conceals a thermoelectric generator that powers a router configured to serve documents related to wilderness survival. The router switches on if the rock is sufficiently warmed, say by a blazing campfire adjacent to it.
It’s based on Piratebox, a standalone Internet router project for file-sharing.
It’s not the only art/artificial boulder project, though: Ed Ruscha claims to have made an artificial boulder called “Rocky II” and hidden it somewhere in the Mojave, where it is visually indistinguishable from the surrounding rocks, making it all but impossible to find.
that magic rock in the Mojave is going to confuse the fuck out of our descendants one day.
probably not. it’s just a rock. most rocks go unregarded
most rocks aren’t wifi access points!
you need to regard a rock to find out if it is a wifi access point.
w hat the fuck. did the world’s most sadistic text adventure game writer make this rock
You are lost in a woodland clearing. There is a large boulder and a pile of firewood nearby. > check cell phone You open your cell phone to google wilderness survival tips, but you don’t have any service. > make campfire with firewood You could light a fire here, but you’d still be lost. > regard rock It’s a large rock. The underside of the rock appears slightly charred. > light campfire under rock Pretty soon you have a blazing campfire going underneath the boulder. > regard rock The strange boulder, now warmed, has begun to emit a faint mechanical hum. > check cell phone You open your cell phone. There is one wifi network available, named “KeepAlive.” > connect to rock wifi The wifi router opens a webpage full of documents on wilderness survival. > ????? Invalid command. > why Invalid command. > who hides secrets in a magic heat-activated rock Invalid command.
