Welcome to the Relative End of the Road Not Taken @Simultan Festival 2023
October 5, 2023 by Sabina Suru Ehibitions, Festivals, Installation, Research, Video Comments Off on Welcome to the Relative End of the Road Not Taken @Simultan Festival 2023
October 5-8, 2023
Anti-Interactive installation
A Marginal project, in co-production with Simultan
Part of Simultan Festival #18
in the framework of Timisoara 2023
Corneliu Miklosi Museum
Off I go to Simultan Festival again! Sooo looking forward to this!
This round, I’ll be part of a bigger collective work, with a anti-interactive video installation, developed with the support of Marginal, and commissioned by Simultan, in the framework of Timisoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture.
It was wonderful to collaborate with such lovely people – drd. Adina Rău (head of The Seismological Observatory in Timisoara, in the framework of INCDFP – National Institute of Research-Development for Earth Physics and gentle carer of the Observatory’s spectacular seismograms archive and seismographs collection) who beautifully helped me navigate the Observatory’s archive and shared with us such incredible scientific information and historical facts on their technological collection, Andrei Tudose (my better half and long time collaborator) who came up with the great idea for the installation and headed the global creative process, Andrei Dinică (creator of the funky kinetic object aka electronic turtle roaming the space) and Mihai Drăgan (programing and tech support aka master of disaster, of course).
My work revisited the techniques I used in developing Faulty Technologies aka digitizing analogue imagery (scanography) and ~analogizing digital video (faulty inkjet printing), back and forth, and resulted in a series of short video works, based on materials shot at The Seismological Observatory along with various documentations from the historical seismograms archive hosted there. The videos were connected to the electronic tortoise’s movement and, inevitably, the public’s dynamics within the exhibition space, at the Corneliu Miklosi Museum. Essentially, the video’s jumped randomly from one to another of the 3 screens mounted on the floor, while the turtle perpetually tried to reach the active screen by use of GPS (and failing each time) and avoid the visitors, at the same time.
“
Innovation and evolution are two very relative terms, both in scientific as well as artistic research. They rely on a multitude of subjective and contextual factors, often dependent on the interaction with others. This collective work explores this view through a multichannel scanography video, randomly moving throughout the space, while a mechanical tortoise struggles to reach it and avoid the visitors at the same time. All comes together in a seemingly random choreography of moving images, technology, and bodies, finding their way to a relative end of a road not taken.
(…)
Start.
We begin to move. We begin to look around. We try to make sense of the things that surround us.
4 seconds.
Everything seems to move so fast. Technology changes without us realizing it, all around us.
Since you started reading this, 92592 Whatsapp messages have been sent.
10 seconds.
The Earth’s crust just moved about 0.2 microns. Another 3 minutes or so and we will reach the
width of the thread of a spider’s web. How fast does innovation move around us? But right
around us, here, in Timișoara?
18 seconds.
There is a valley of death for scientific research, a place where, once reached, projects remain
stuck for a very long time. Due to lack of funding, due to lack of interest, due to lack of adequate
technologies. Or due to lack of creativity. Just the same in art. But what if we bring together art
and science?
32 seconds.
Since the start, a tortoise covered a distance equivalent to two human steps. If it didn’t have any
obstacles to avoid. Where is the tortoise heading to? And why do people hinder it?
38 seconds.
Welcome to the Relative End of the Road Not Taken!
“
Excerpt from curatorial text by Andrei Tudose
Contributors
Simultan is an annual festival dedicated to interdisciplinary arts – emerging media projects, experimental music and audio-visual and sound projects, to support new forms of artistic expression. The program includes live audio-visual performances, video art screenings, exhibitions, conferences and workshops.
https://www.simultan.org/
Marginal is a cultural non-profit organization from Bucharest, Romania, functioning as a transdisciplinary collective aiming to support, promote and extend bridges between artists and various agents from adjacent fields, with a focus on the humanities and the implications of sciences and technologies in socio-cultural structures.
https://marginal.ro/
Team
Andrei Tudose (artistic direction)
Andrei Dinică (electronic assemblage / robo-turtle)
Sabina Suru (animation / archive digitisation)
Mihai Drăgan (programming)
drd. Adina Rău (researcher / archive)
Big tank you’s:
Mimi Ciora / Indecis + Asociația Foc și Pară
Seismological Observatory Timisoara
INCDFP – The National Institute for Earth Physics
Timișoara 2023 – European Capital of Culture