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NETinSPACE
MAXXI - National Museum of the Arts of the XXIst Century
30. Mai - 25. December 2010

Curator: Elena Rossi

Sculpting in Air / Video-Planet
A Video composition onto a floating weather balloon with live cameras transmitted to the web

Supported by Pro Helvetia
Kulturpauschale Basel-Stadt

Director: Katja Loher
Assistant Director: Luke Emery
Computer programming: Roman Semein
Photographer: Marco Monti
Dialogue: Julia Sorensen
Audio Design: Asako Fujimoto
Costume Design: Erica Magrey
Choreography: Saori Tsukada
Dancers: Karesia Batan / Romina Rodriguez-Crosta / Shandoah Goldman
CJ Holm / Catalina Martinez / Azumi Oe / Zoe!

view video and live streaming here :: www.maxxi.katjaloher.com ::

Sculpting in Air orchestrates communication on the border of virtual space and reality.
Viewed from above, human bodies form in live choreography letters that are composed into visual language in postproduction. In these choreographies the individuals accumulate and transform into abstract patterns that define the face of the crowd. Zooming into the crowd, the individuals become apparent. Zooming out, an artistic pattern is realized, defining the identity of the crowd.
By creating choreography in the bird's eye perspective Katja Loher repositions the audience as observers. The Video-planet changes the direction of the view of the observer therefore we suspect It just may as well be huge shimmering eyeball in turn watching us just as we are watching it.
A web camera, positioned next to the balloon, zooms into the audience. The image of the viewer is not only transmitted as a live stream on the web but also screened onto the backside of the Video-Planet, placed on a passage way in the museum.
People appear and disappear like a seal peeking through the portals of an aquarium or like visitors seen through a peephole of a door.
The game between the observer and the observed is exposed when on the web, the visitors appear watching the person visiting the web while watching the work.
At the moment the audience is observing the dialogue on the Video-planet, they themselves are to be revealed.
If we are searching for our own reality, there arises in us the expectation of an additional understanding, a reflex of the future revealing the eye as it looks back at the past.

h-planet: "Hello."
e-planet: <answer: Hello; /* fix for long text breaking sidebar float in IE */>
h-planet: "What is your name?"
e-planet: <b:include data='my' name='all-head-content'/>
h-planet: "What is your name?"
e-planet: <Variable name = "no answer": 'error unknown'>
h-planet: "Nice to meet you, Error unknown."
e-planet: <reaction: pleased; / <Error unknown = not name>>
h-planet: "What are you doing?"
e-planet: </* define center of space*/>
h-planet: "What space?"
e-planet: <Variable space = 'no answer'>
h-planet: "What space?"
e-planet: <Variable space = 'no answer'>
h-planet: "What center?"
e-planet: <Virtual space = 'define center'>
h-planet: "Where are you from?"
e-planet: <Allowed time limit exceeded . Allowed time limit exceeded . Allowed time limit exceeded>
h-planet: "Ok...forget it."
e-planet: <b:erase data='everything' place='all-brain-content'/>
h-planet: "What happens to vanished memories?"
e-planet: <action: shut down>
h-planet: "Is there any secret space?"
e-planet: <action: restart>

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