Archive for the ‘virtual’ tag
Nach lautloser Explosion
Yesterday evening, Gerhard Mantz new solo exhibition Nach lautloser Explosion (After a soundless explosion) opened at DAMBerlin. This is my text for the catalogue.
Landscapes
Writing about the work of Gerhard Mantz is not an easy task. When I’m confronted with it, two different elements of our current visual landscape come to my mind: Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings and my iMac’s “nature” desktops and screensavers. Even if I used, for a long time, Friedrich’s Landschaft mit Regenbogen (1810) as a desktop’s background – for the first time ever in my experience with computers, the iMac’s screen seems to be the right frame for a painting – I know that these two things are pretty different: before entering our media-driven, post-industrial, post-modern, capitalistic culture that turns everything into a gadget – and thus, a Nineteenth century painting into a desktop wallpaper – Friedrich’s works were sublime visions conceived to make us think about the supernatural, and the divine that pervades everything around us.
Seppukoo
Seppukoo is – no kidding – the killer app in terms of social networking. I got in love with it the very first time I heard wispers about it. Now I’m really proud to announce my brand new memorial page.
Seppukoo is a project by the imaginary art-group Les Liens invisibles (www.lesliensinvisibles.org). It helps you to suicide your virtual identity, apparently deleting your account on Facebook. While doing it, it spreads the suicide virus among your friends. In the meantime, it creates a memorial page – an account – for you on Seppukoo.com, which is nothing more than a social network of wannabe self-murderers. Yet, when you go back to Facebook, you’ll discover that your suicide was merely simbolic, because you can reactivate your Facebook account just logging in again. Through parody, parasitism and viral distribution, Seppukoo shows how difficult it is to regain control on your identity, data and information when you gifted them to a social network. Life never ends – at least, on Facebook!
Virtuale
![agent-smith-standing-in-rain-matrix-revolutions[1]](http://domenicoquaranta.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/agent-smith-standing-in-rain-matrix-revolutions1-399x313.jpg "agent-smith-standing-in-rain-matrix-revolutions[1]")
Domenico Quaranta, “Virtuale”, in L’Unità, July 16, 2009, pp. 30 – 31.
La lingua è ricca di termini la cui utilità è inversamente proporzionale al loro utilizzo. Virtuale è uno di questi. Usato dai filosofi ma poco presente nel linguaggio comune, l’aggettivo “virtuale” deve la sua nuova giovinezza a un visionario rasta americano, Jaron Lanier, che negli anni Ottanta l’associa al sostantivo “realtà”. La realtà virtuale sarà il sogno futuristico degli anni Ottanta e Novanta, alimentato da Hollywood e dalla fantascienza: una realtà simulata eppure in grado di ingannare tutti i sensi. Tuttavia, la tecnologia corre veloce, ma fatica a tenere il passo dei sogni: presto ci si stanca di cave, caschi, data glove e delle noiose animazioni accessibili attraverso di essi.
The Gate (or Hole in Space, Reloaded) – 2007
THE GATE (or Hole in Space, Reloaded)
The Gate is an installation connecting real life and Second Life, a junction point, a door between two worlds and two representation spaces. Basically, it is a simple window between both worlds where real users and SL users see each other and can meet. A view of the SL Gate is permanently projected in the real life venue; when an avatar comes in front of The Gate, it is visible in the public space; when one arrives physically in front of the door in the public space, he/she can interact with the SL user currently in front.
The Gate – Press Release
The Gate (or Hole in Space, Reloaded)
THE GATE (or Hole in Space, Reloaded)
Yannick Antoine, Yves Bernard (BE)
With the collaboration of: Domenico Quaranta (IT), Sugar Seville (SL)
Opening Performance: Second Front
iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Brussels; Odyssey Contemporary Art and Performance, Second Life (Odyssey 122/45/25)
04/10/07 – 07/10/07
The Gate is an installation connecting real life and Second Life, a junction point, a door between two worlds and two representation spaces. Basically, it is a simple window between both worlds where real users and SL users see each other and can meet. A view of the SL Gate is permanently projected in the real life venue; when an avatar comes in front of The Gate, it is visible in the public space; when one arrives physically in front of the door in the public space, he/she can interact with the SL user currently in front.
