Monitor of Egocentrism
Without doubt, an exposition of interactive projects became the focal event of the Kyiv International Media Art Festival (KIMAF), held at the Modern Art Center. Such exhibits have become traditional MAC features, yet this one stands out with its geography and the degree of prestige.
Among the items on display were electronic installations by US, British, Swedish, German, Japanese, Austrian, French, and Polish artists. Ukraine equaled the guests numerically. Illia Isupov’s floor-to- ceiling Broken Statue met the visitors at the entrance. Fragments of a tortured reddish brown body. Next to it was Illia Chichkan’s monumental composition, a video clip called Love-Hate with the artist happily sparring with an excavator. Other items required the visitors’ active participation. Peter Style (Poland) staged a real sex attraction with his Cyborg Sex Manual. A visitor was seated comfortable between thick cushions and used a mouse to guide two virtual lovers through their antics. While the coitus was in progress, the screen showed captions having little to do with the erotic aspect of the performance, but this did not seem to bother anyone. Alba d’Urbano (Germany) offered another voyeuristic toy with his Apollo 2001, a computer version of table tennis, except that in lieu of the ball the virtual players used a naked soapy female torso. Olha Kashymbekova in her Anti-Karaoke, consisting of a microphone and monitor, showed an erotically hygienic inclination (at least this is what one read in the press release). Men singing into the microphone were to be rewarded with the image of a girl taking a shower; women would see an attractive young man doing the same. Yet the screen remained blank, the visitor’s vocal talent notwithstanding. In a word, the result matched the title perfectly. The same goes for Camill Waterback and Romi Achituw (US) with their Textual Rain. Their contrivance transferred the visitor’s image to the screen and covered it with an even shower of characters. Each settled on human contours, being transformed into words and sentences, finally emerging as Evan Zimrot’s poem, “You Speak.” Their module was perhaps the most graceful among the items on display.
Finally, two contrivances implying manipulations with visitors’ own images. Alba d’Urbano’s Touch Me allowed one first to see oneself on the screen and then change one’s face in whichever way. Hiroshi Matoba’s Digital Fukurwai was a steady success. Here one could make one’s face fall to pieces and then put it back together like a jigsaw puzzle.
Swedish products were a real triumph of computer infernality. Tobias Bernstrup’s Untitled produced the effect of a long meditative walk in a deserted underground supermarket. However, the greatest success was scored by Palle Torsson’s virtual chiller and the title spoke for itself: Subject: Woman Killer, Age Five. For several minutes a girl with hair tied in a bow, wearing a knapsack, kills peaceful fellow citizens left and right. For Torsson it is a standard technique. Together with Bernstrup, they have written similar games displayed by various museums. Yet the problem was not even the contents of his new bloodbath, but the manner in which it was watched by visitors. Everybody seemed to enjoy the horrible performance with almost childish gusto, they way fans watch a good soccer match.
The current exhibit will certainly help one better understand interactivity as a creative technique. One of the key purposes of such dialogues is as pleasing the viewer’s ego as possible. Not just entertain or make one think or give rise to empathy. Just please. Allow one to become aware of oneself, even if for a couple of minutes, as master of a given situation, if not its architect. A couple of lovers will obediently comply with your every command. And the girl blasting away left and right will not step out of the screen and cut you down with her machine gun. This will be accomplished by another three-dimensional subject, one made of flesh and blood, just like you, with eyes slightly red from staring into the computer screen.
