Die Sprache der Dinge is an archive of personal memorabilia presented on a conveyor belt-like 'shelf' on the black monitor screen, and able to be arranged according to numerous objective criteria. Associative spoken texts accompany each object, hyperlinks within these texts lead to chance encounters between the objects and the narratives. (contactzones.cit.cornell.edu) Data acquisition at the Surrogate exhibition, ZKM Karlsruhe, November-December 1998