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A way to see this work is how it connects existing elements. The goal is
not so much to invent all new things, but to compose a new meaningful   
whole of different elements so that they will complement each other. For
example, there already are massively multi-player on-line roleplaying games
(mmorpg), where people participate in different worlds. Also, there are
public displays with which people can interact using their mobile phones, 
also with game-like content (famously on TV). Furthermore,
socially-critical works and communities live on the net. We take a
look at those areas, how we see their current state and why and how
certain parts of them will take place in the installation.

Computer games are technologically at the forefront in both the quality of
real-time visualisations and fluency of network interaction. For example,
Unreal Tournament 2003 (and Quake3) utilize recent advances in graphics   
cards and feature efficient servers where virtual worlds are hosted for
the gamers. Additional tools, such as IRC and voice-over-IP (TeamSpeak
etc.) make playing a very engaging experience. The 'content', i.e.
gameplay, can be described as virtual sports. Perhaps similarly to traditional
sports, the action is not in relation with things happening
elsewhere/otherwise in the 'real world'. In The First and The Last, such
connections will be explored in two directions, as elaborated in the
following.

Mobile phones (and PDAs) are already much more numerous than desktop
computers, and are expected increasingly to be so. They
introduce computed-based applications such as information organising,    
communication networks, media processing and games to many people who are
not interested nor able to use more powerful, yet more cumbersome desktop computers.
However, there is a tendency to separate mobile services from similar,  
perhaps already existing ones in the stationary computing world. A clear and
much discussed reason for this is of course the differing contexts and
hence the needs of a mobile user. But another derives from the fact that on  
the Internet people are not used to pay, but over mobile phone networks
the operators tend to charge for each service. For example, e-mail does   
not cost per message sent (not to mention any length limits). Besides all
that and other reasons for the separation (such as technical differences),
it is known that same services can well be made usable from both   
stationary computers and mobile phones / PDAs. Here we attempt to make it
so that there are means to participate in the same worlds in both ways.
A social motivation for this is to try to connect computer gamers, often  
separated in their dedicated communities, with non-computer non-gamers, 
who might just be passing by the installation on the street.

Public displays provide the (primary) way for people with mobile devices
to participate in The First and the Last. ( !!FIXME!! something about them in
general?)

The large displays, e.g. projections, are controlled by a computer, which
is connected also to a Bluetooth base station that provides the link for
capable mobile devices..

, including sensor information from the physical world, such as weather and air$ !!FIXME!!

An additional type of connection in the system is to other, external     
systems. In particular, common news / economic databases are mined to
determine some variables, such as stock exchange indexes, currency  
exchange rates etc. Also, analogically to how physical sensors read    
environmental information at the installation site, the condition of the
network is monitored (e.g. the latency between the First and the Last main
server and Whitehouse.Gov). These variables can be mapped to basically any
features of the artificial worlds, but they may often be non-critical:
e.g. dollar vs. euro determining wind direction, latency in the network   
the colour of the sky. These kind of mappings, or ones to more trivial things,
reflect how such strongly communicated (in case of economic
figures) news in the mass media in a way form a common consciousness about
things that often remain remote and render irrelevant to actual actions of
people in the everyday lives. Yet it is an attempt to connect game worlds 
and entertaining virtual environments to information systems commonly    
used in boring office work.

..

Finally, artificial life has already been demonstrated in different
systems throughout the years, and we do not expect to make a (theoretical)
breakthrough in that area - quite the opposite, for the sake of simplicity
the idea is to limit the genetic algorithms used to very basic and
well-known ones. We find that many basic ideas there are still new to most
people and not that much publicly explored. Also the applications in
commercial games are rare and preliminary (!!FIXME!! what? a big word). But most importantly, we plan
to contextualise them in intellectually and emotionally meaningful
settings where artifacts communicate to people and people can learn to
communicate with each other.

(!!FIXME!! where and how about non-controversial vs. controversial content?)