The project is listed at 2001
- 2004 workplan by Nes Theaters,
Amsterdam.
Darko Fritz & Ivana Müller
Metro > Moscow
project proposal
‘Metro > Moscow’ is an interdisciplinary project which deals with the body in public space and the ways it can be represented through various media. The project explores the possibilities of redefining cultural and public spaces. In that respect we would like to propose three different spaces temporally synchronized:
1. urban space (metro station)
2. ‘cultural space’ (exhibition)
3. virtual space (Internet)
These three spaces could be understood as three different sites of representation:
1: URBAN SPACE: METRO STATIONS
- hosting a site-specific performance
The metro is one of the most interesting places in the overall urban
landscape. Here, a dynamic is created based on encounters between people.
It is a public space where people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds
intersect.
The project is placed on two different metro stations in Moscow, from
which one is in the very center of the city and the other one in
the city suburb.
The two chosen metro stations will host two performers, one at each
station. The performances will be based on the studies of the space
of each station as well as study of the behavior of people that are using
that space i.e. the influence of spatial elements on the codes of communication.
The approximate length of each choreography will be 30 minutes and it can
take place a couple of times per day. The performances in the two different
stations will occur at the same time.
The metro stations are observed by an already existing video surveillance
system which belongs to the metro company. Using ‘video streaming’ technology
we would like to transmit this video signal to two other sites, the cultural
and the virtual one.
2: ‘CULTURAL SPACE’
- hosting live-act and a video installation
While the performances at the metro stations are taking place there is a simultaneous performance at the cultural site. A performer present in the cultural space interacts with the projected images of two other performers which are simultaneously performing at two Metro stations. The projected images are coming from the above mentioned surveillance system. Compositionally, all three performers interrelate and create one choreographic / theatrical unit.
3: INTERNET
- web site hosting a live video broadcast
A video signal from the metro surveillance system is transmitted to
the web document twenty four hours a day. During the performances in the
cultural space a video link from this site will be transmitted to the web
document as well. This video streaming is a three-scene view at the single
internet document (two stations + cultural site).
The video signals as such are an independent 'video-art installation'
and they can be presented during the entire exhibition time. They, at the
same time, act as a stage for the performances (specially announced in
the program).
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All three sites (metro, exhibition space, web-site) are playing an important
and active role. The electronic picture of the individual's body in the
public space is tele-presented by surveillance camera system and extended
through the Internet space building up the data-body of the art work. This
"technological
social sculpture" reconstructs daily position of the individual
body in a public space, observed and manipulated by the media-power structures,
recreated here in the artistic context.
The video surveillance system has been initially designed as a tool
for maintenance of security and control of designated areas. In this
project we treat it as a 'ready made' in the context of contemporary
media art. The video surveillance system aesthetic is created by its purpose.
Images which are displayed in a series of "windows", including a time-code
and a specific camera angle (mostly high angle) give an impression of ‘reality’.
There are no devices that manipulate the images such as editing or arranging
the mise-en-scéne which are generally applied in film and TV production.
Conceived in such a manner the video surveillance system puts pressure
on the notion of reality. Therefore making the surveillance accessible
to the net users, i.e. placing the system within the public domain can
offer a contribution in the field of technology realism.
Darko Fritz & Ivana Müller
Amsterdam, March 2000.