chi sch on Fri, 28 Dec 2001 18:59:14 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> art (under attack) - under attack (art) |
What happens if the observer becomes the protagonist? What happens if the observer’s behaviour determines the action? What happens if the action is a terror attack? And if the terror attack displayed and enacted by the observer really occurred, and we all witnessed it, and all of us obsessively assisted to its looped video documentation? An Italian artist has done ad interactive video that collects the video images of the Twin Towers terror attack. Whenever a person stands in front of the flat screen his/her presence is sensed and becomes the engine of the video: going back and forth makes one of the amateurial video (randomly chosen) move back and forth. Nor is the observer freed from the interaction if he halts, as standing still for a couple of seconds produces a shift to another (randomly chosen) video. That is: whatever the observer does, he’s involved. This work is primarily meant for non Americans, I suppose. In so far “Remote still” (the interactive device) and “Under Attack” (its very first application) dramatically questions the role of the observer on a theoretical / philosophical level, of course, but in a striking and involving way as well. It questions the illusion of distance and security that television/video screens usually evoke, the relationship between game or fiction and reality: you can move the airplanes back, you might act like in a videogame, but you know very well that’s no game at all and that playing with these images is immoral (in order to prevent a cynic or instrumental interpretation of “Under Attack”, the videos have been retouched: you recognise them, but their colours differ from the original ones). This work is on view in Milan, till January the 6th 2002. I’d like to know your opinion. There’s been so much talk about the role of the observer in new interactive art works, on one side, so much talk about tv-reality being more real than the real, on the other side. It’s time to check these theoretic considerations. newsmad __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net