www.collective-view.ch | 2012 - | research project

Mathias Kaspar | upcoming: Swann Thommen (ex collective_fact), Alexandra Navratil, Laurent Schmid, Raffael Dörig, Reinhard Storz, Yvonne Volkart

 

Situation: The digital revolution gave rise to a society which communicates, informs, and manipulates with images. This development is based on media that are compatible with mass culture. The space of the internet is not only convenient as a platform for communication and information, it is also a space of signs and images of a rapidly changing and hybrid social order. The internet makes it possible to exchange and formulate socially relevant actions in real time. Using the internet as an interface, webcam technology supports the emergence of a new type of images which are typically time-bound and context-specific. The emphasis here is on the real-time image as a simulacrum which is produced through webcam technology and multiple authorship and which is thus necessarily of a public nature.

Project Discription: For a certain period, artist-researchers are provided with webcams. Each person is invited to place their webcam in a context of their choice. The images taken by the cameras are transmitted in real-time to the internet site www.collective-view.ch. The user interface of the website shows the real-time image of the webcam, information about the real-time image, navigation tools for the webcam, and a link to a press release. Web users can access the webcam via the webpage www.collective-view.ch, which offers the opportunity to control the webcam and choose among several possible views of a specific situation. The web users can also take pictures via the webcam. These images can be saved onto the user’s computer but will also be used to archive the exhibitions on www.collective-view.ch. The archive of www.collective-view.ch is thus generated by the web users.

Introduction: In the context of the research project www.collective-view.ch the real-time image produced by webcam technology will be investigated in terms of its aesthetic and social quality. A new visual medium such as the webcam inevitably leads to the emergence of new image types. These image types are linked to the particular technology of the medium, the authorship and context- and time-specific conditions. With the development of new forms of communication and representation media – such as webcam technology – images and forms of work develop which influence our perception of what is reality, since we increasingly view it from a distance. The invited artist-researchers participating in the test arrangement of www.collective-view.ch no longer develop their work and image decisions for a physical, three-dimensional space but for the webcam, which represents the gateway to the space of the Internet. The resulting interconnection between the location of the webcam, the real-time images and the still images, whose creation is made possible within the arrangement of www.collective-view.ch through the participation of the Internet users, provides insights into an altered perception of the external. In addition, the research should show how a multiple authorship emerges which has the public as its prerequisite.

www.collective-view.ch | www