HiBYE originated from a commission by curator Paola Antonelli for the exhibition Workspheres, inaugurated at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, on February 8, 2001. The proposal consisted of conceiving a technological object for nomadic workers, at a moment when mobility was beginning to be redefined through emerging digital technologies.

Instead of designing a wearable computer, HiBYE materialized as a collection of 21 “apps” or “pills” in the form of statements: minimal instructions for inhabiting transit. Rather than an electronic device, it operates as a behavioral interface, software without hardware acting directly on the conduct of the nomadic worker.

The research is structured around several premises:One travels to contrast auras. The exchange of information does not require physical displacement. Traveling without luggage implies extending one’s home to the entire world. The nomadic worker inhabits non-places, and the primary working instrument is oral culture.

The 21 statements function as a portable protocol for a life in transit.

The name condenses this condition: “hi” and “bye” pronounced almost simultaneously. HiBYE is a complex piece, still 90% contemporary today. Its development required half a year of intensive research into the nomadic world and, paradoxically, it has never been fully explained. That remains pending.

HiBYE is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Martí Guixé, 2025




Images:
HiBYE, Instruction Card 7.0 (Side A).
Wall drawing of the functional instructions at MoMA, New York.
Installation view, which included two vending machines.
Photographs by Inga Knölke, 2001.