Statement
I began collecting airline safety charts a few years back, not really knowing what I would do with them beside the fact that I liked the graphics and I'm fascinated by safety regulations and the idea of travel. Remnants of these charts inevitably made their way into"Empty Velocity" (commissioned by Turbulence.org in 1999). I went further into airline research and gathered a library of airport terminal maps by querying "airport terminals" on the internet. Recreations of these layouts are the foundations of many pages where visitors "arrive" and "depart." Weaved throughout the site is Taoist text and analogies between travel, telecommunications and Buddhist philosophy. In the title, "Empty" refers to the Buddhist idea that every object is interconnected and represents the world while "Velocity" connotes weightless speed. Combining high-speed travel with Buddhism's concept of "emptiness," "Empty Velocity" is a site dedicated to the digital nomad. The foundation of the web site is structured by skeletal maps of airport terminals around the globe. Accessibility of the airport web sites was the criterion for the selection process. These maps were then recreated to serve as destination points in "Empty Velocity" where Taoist text and moving images of travel weave in and out against the maps' graphical structures.

Bio
As recent digital technologies cultivate fresh picture viewers, a generation of media artists emerges. Combining common objects, atmospheric sounds and moving pictures, artist Angie Eng creates environments probing the surface of awkward subtleties of everyday existence. She is a recognized video artist and performer in the digital arts scene in New York City. Her background studies in psychology and the social process of behavior prompted her to recreate situations regarding mental security and primitive instincts. Recent work inspired by her experiences as a teacher of children and mentally ill adults have been exhibited all over the United States as well as in Japan. Context has a prominent impact on Eng's installations, which she has exhibited in both public spaces and conventional galleries and museums. Her video installations and art objects have been shown at alternative venues such as Max Fish (an infamous East Village bar), Pseudo (an infamous "dot com"), the elevator at Art In General, the corridor of Anna Kustera Gallery. Other sites include: Bronx Museum, Alternative Museum, AIR Gallery and Artists Space. Her last installation, "Be Where?" was exhibited in a stone 17th century former gun-powder storage room as part of BELEF (Belgrade Summer Arts Festival) in Yugoslavia. Crossing over to the digital realm, Eng launched a web project, "Empty Velocity" commissioned by Turbulence.org in October '99. This work was included in numerous international digital festivals. Other internet projects include S.M.A.K, an on-line museum for Gent's(Belgium) Contemporary Museum and Slant.org an art site on Asian Americans against censorship funded in part by an Artists Space Independent Project Grant. This year she received a digital residency from the Alternative Museum to create another web art project, "Buddha Hotel," which launched in February 2001. She is currently traveling to South East Asia for 1 year to record video and sound for an upcoming internet performance/installation in the fall of 2001.