Felix/Methods

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S2 // Reviewing self-directed research

Revision

Poetic question: How is reality looking? OR What is reality made look?

MAYBE NOT reality BUT public / publicity / public appearance / appearance of the public

In the Public. My interest in the public / public space might be that it is strongly set against the idea of "closed" spaces like filter bubbles or seemingly public spaces in the interet. Maybe a question could also be how public the public space is. So the term of reality could also be translated in neutrality (neutral to the public?/neutral to the reality?). What do feelings/emotions to do with it.

What are you making?

I am working on a project with a not yet specified outcome form/media/extent. Though, photographic images (or "lens-based" images), including still photography, moving images and photographic VR spheres being the main medial subject of the project.

The overall researched question is on the picturization and creation of reality and simulated realities, their perception and adoption. A strong focus will be on micro realities happening in an individuals or small groups perception.

This includes means of visual illusions, to create a certain emotion about reality. The power of artificial realities to immerse. Filter bubbles (and their appearance in public spaces vs. filter bubbles in filtered spaces)

It includes the interest in technologies that are able to create an increased level of immersion or just create a spectacle as a means of .

simulated reality ->INDEX-> reality INDEXICALITY IN SIMULATED REALITIES INDEXICALITY IN VIRTUALITY

Why are you making it?

Does it relate to other work?

It is connected to previous work that dealt with semi-public architecture that is incorporating contemporary aims.

S1 // The three project descriptions

Revisions

Beyond

Thinking Beyond is a digital software incorporated in a spatial, audio-visual installation depicting a sacral environment. Therefore it is made from an altar, a tryptichon from backlit prints displaying renderings of a moebius strip and six plates with commandments. It is interactive and provides the recipient with a tool to liberate himself from being a physical extension of an algorithmic controlled virtual society he is connected through his iPhone’s internet connection and make him a human being of free will. The emotionalising movie-soundtrack „Chariots of Fire“ is playing during the interaction of the recipient.

The intended „liberation“, as it is staged by the created fictive institution, is executed through a software, accessible through the altar, that is used as an iPhone dock. It uses generic Apple software to restrict the smarphones ability to use any kind of third party apps, as well as to connect to the internet. The 2x2 meter large altar is built of grey MDF and has a monumental appeal. The tryptichon displays the fictive Beyond-Society’s symbol, a moebius strip, stylised as minimalist productimages, referring to the design language of tech companies, especially such as Apple. The sacral appeal is continued on the audible level through playing the music by Vangelis that strengthens the emotional binding to the created institution.

With the sacral appeal and strong references to the commonly known aesthetics to Apple Inc.’s design language, that are exaggerated through its further minimisation, connected to the dystopic but though realistic idea of the recipient being an unfree personality but controlled through his smartphones software, the science-fictional installation becomes reality and through that criticises the current praxis of data-capitalism and people farming, arises awareness and provides, in a satiric manner, a method to overcome this practices. This is intended to process the personal observations and experiences of the author/artist/creator.

New New Home II

New New Home II is the second installation of an ongoing series of architectural photography. Two images, one showing a new, modern brick-wall with a door-sized, full-height window that is fully covered by a paravon with the print of a historic door on it on the inside, the other one showing the end of a new built, semi-private garden with a wall as a closing, and small garden gates to the private lawns that are also divided through small hedges. Both photographs are printed in 1:1 size, 2,80 meters long and 2,20 meters high.

The photographs are made at shady daylight with a normal lens on a medium format camera. The lines of the architecture are kept straight. Technically this creates a neutral and seemingly objective aesthetics and for that is intended to look as realistic as possible. Contrary to that the captured scenes appeal surrealistic and quirky, because of, in the first picture, the style and the positioning in front of the windows by the resident, and in the second, the layout of the gardens that seem to mainly exist of different divisions of the space. The large formats that make the recipient nearly stand in the scene exaggerate the appeal even more.

By showing explicitly new built residential spaces, the series of two is giving two contemporary documents of the exact time they were built in and photographed without the aspect of ageing. The quirkiness of the scenes is referring to the infantile humanity and a zeitgeist that existed at that moment. The display of the images took place within the same time period the photographs were taken and the buildings were designed and built. With that, the given stylisation of humanity and zeitgeist are thrown back to the recipient, who can see himself in the images.

City Center

City Center is a photographic work of 36 images displayed on a flat-lying 1x4 meter backlit display. The 6x6 photographs picture an about 40 year old shopping center, that’s architecture has hardly changed over the years. The mall is mostly empty and abandoned with some shops still in use and still maintained. The images are arranged in a straight 3x12 layout with identical distance in-between.

The photographs are made with the available light, which is daylight, falling through the glass-roof or from the sides, and fluorescent lamps from the center’s lightning. The camera is a 6x6 medium format camera that is used as well on a tripod as in the hand and captures on color negative film. The film is scanned and without editing digital printed on backlight textile. The print in its backlit frame is placed on the floor in a central position in the exhibition space, providing space to walk around.

The photographs by showing stillstand and decay are a time document referring to consume-culture and trends. The little life-signs of open shops and traces of human beings make the place appear like a human made zombie to irritate the recipient. The form of the installation, picturing a huge abstraction of an archeologists workplace and the material of the installation, coming from contemporary retail design, further focuses on the meaning of time, simultaneously putting the past, the present and the time in-between on display and through that uncovering societal change in the field of consume culture in public spaces.

First versions

Beyond

Thinking Beyond is a digital software incorporated in a spatial, audio-visual installation. It is interactive and provides the recipient with a tool to liberate him*herself from being a physical extension of an algorithmic controlled virtual society he*she is connected through his*her iPhone’s internet connection and make him*her a human being of free will. The spatial installation depicts a sacral environment, containing an altar, a tryptichon from backlit prints displaying renderings of a moebius strip and six plates with commandments of a proclaimed new society. „Chariots of Fire“ is playing during the interaction of the recipient.

The liberation is executed through a software, accessible through the altar, that is used as an iPhone dock. It uses generic Apple software to restrict the smarphones ability to use any kind of third party apps, as well as to connect to the internet. The 2x2 meter large altar is built of grey MDF and has a monumental appeal. The tryptichon displays the fictive Beyond-Society’s symbol, a moebius strip, stylised as minimalist productimages, referring to the design language of tech companies, especially such as Apple. The sacral appeal is continued on the audible level through playing the music by Vangelis that strengthens the emotional binding to the created institution.

With the sacral appeal and strong references to the commonly known aesthetics to Apple Inc.’s design language, that are exaggerated through its further minimisation, connected to the dystopic but though realistic idea of the recipient being an unfree personality but controlled through his*her smartphones software, the science-fictional installation becomes reality and through that criticises the current praxis of data-capitalism and people farming, arises awareness and provides, in a satiric manner, a method to overcome this practices.

New New Home II

New New Home II is the second installation of an ongoing series of architectural photography. Two images, one showing a new, modern brick-wall with a door-sized, full-height window that is fully covered by a paravon with the print of a historic door on it on the inside, the other one showing the end of a new built, semi-private garden with a wall as a closing, and small garden gates to the private lawns that are also divided through small hedges. Both photographs are printed in 1:1 size, 2,80 meters long and 2,20 meters high.

The photographs are made at shady daylight with a normal lens on a medium format camera. The lines of the architecture are kept straight. Technically this creates a neutral and seemingly objective aesthetics and for that is intended to look as realistic as possible. Contrary to that the captured scenes appeal surrealistic and quirky, because of, in the first picture, the style and the positioning in front of the windows by the resident, and in the second, the layout of the gardens that seem to mainly exist of different divisions of the space. The large formats that make the recipient nearly stand in the scene exaggerate the appeal even more.

By showing explicitly new built residential spaces, the series of two is giving two contemporary documents of the exact time they were built in and photographed without the aspect of ageing. The quirkiness of the scenes is referring to the infantile humanity and a zeitgeist that existed at that moment. The display of the images being within the same time period the photographs were taken and the buildings were designed and built, this stylisation of humanity and zeitgeist is thrown back to the recipient that can see him*herself in the images.

City Center

City Center is a photographic work of 36 images displayed on a flat-lying 1x4 meter backlit display. The 6x6 photographs picture an about 40 year old shopping center, that’s architecture has hardly changed over the years. The mall is mostly empty and abandoned with some shops still in use and still maintained. The images are arranged in a straight 3x12 layout with identical distance in-between.

The photographs are made with the available light, which is daylight, falling through the glass-roof or from the sides, and fluorescent lamps from the center’s lightning. The camera is a 6x6 medium format camera that is used as well on a tripod as in the hand and captures on color negative film. The film is scanned and without editing digital printed on backlight textile. The print in its backlit frame is placed on the floor in a central position in the exhibition space, providing space to walk around.

The photographs by showing stillstand and decay are a time document referring to consume-culture and trends. The little life-signs of open shops and traces of human beings make the place appear like a human made zombie to irritate the recipient. The form of the installation, picturing a huge abstraction of an archeologists workplace and the material of the installation, coming from contemporary retail design, further focuses on the meaning of time, simultaneously putting the past, the present and the time in-between on display and through that uncovering societal change in the field of consume culture in public spaces.