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Mediamorphose
by Roberto Cabot
Description of the project
Mediamorphose is an installation that combines the means and traditions
of painting and contemporary digital network techniques. It reveals the
contradictions of the mechanisms through which we perceive our immediate
surroundings, the urban context. In the installation, constructed in the
frame of a simple architectural structure, the visitor is confronted with
the impossibility of decoding a painted wall-image from direct observation.
This image can only be interpreted through the intervention of a digital
camera installed at the right perspective angle. With this construction,
the viewer is brought into the double situation of depending on the camera
eye to be able to interpret what he/she sees, and being registered and
observed by this same device. In this way, a situation is made visible
which we are confronted with on a daily basis and are theoretically aware
of, but are unable to experience as a conscious fact. Surveillance and
information manipulation are per se covert activities. From the perspective
of the visitor, the wall painting appears strongly deformed so that the
representation in it is not visible. The camera is pointed from a viewpoint
that re-establishes the current perspective in the image so that it is
possible to decode it. At the moment that the visitor passes by the painting,
the camera captures a frame, which is projected in the next room. In this
projected image, the visitor sees him/herself standing in front of the
now comprehensible image. These images are sent in parallel to an internet
server and archived in a database which is accessible to everyone through
the web.
Context: the perception of urban space
Far distant events can be of more relevance to the existence of an individual
or a community than events that take place in their immediate surroundings.
On the other hand, major events in a megalopolis are often only perceivable
by its inhabitants through the media. One of the strongest recent examples
of this is the fact that most New Yorkers followed the tragedy of September
11th on their TV screens, just like billions of citizen around the world,
who experienced the collapse of the Twin Towers in NY as if it was happening
in their own town. The portion of reality that is relevant to our existences
has been expanded by the globalisation process to such an extent that it
is no longer perceivable to the naked eye. The future polis has no physical
location, becomes almost an immaterial space, only perceivable through the
media screens. Further, this media (and the technical devices it avails
of) increasingly takes on the double function of informing as well as of
surveilling and controlling the citizen. The same devices produce the content
of the daily news, and at the same time monitor the movements and actions
of the population. The media (including the internet) also becomes an instrument
of information and of manipulation and control.
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