The Link
Plexiglass, led, streaming 360 web-camera,
website: http://i-am-online-therefore-i.am
2015 – 2016
Dimensions: 300 x 200 cm
Courtesy of the author. Installation produced by Pechersky Gallery, Moscow and CES Artslink foundation, NYC.
An image of a shining hyperlink is set up in various locations. The URL address is a full sentence:
http://this-is-the.link/between/the/real-and-virtual
This is an active link which includes elements of the web link syntax familiar to us. At the same time it can be read as a full sentence. The project is partially virtual in nature and includes a web page located at the address given in the link, showing a real-time 360-degree panorama camera view of its location.
A spectator encountering this familiar image of a link in the physical space will probably use his or her smartphone to follow the link.
By doing this, the viewer will make a transition from the real to the virtual and perform a simple action, which has long become the norm. Today when reality and virtuality are intertwined like cables attached to a computer, it is hard to imagine one without the other. There is no event without its virtual echo, no human without his or her digital alter ego, no emotion without its cyber reverberation.
The work is part of a series of conceptually similar objects, including http://i-am-online-therefore-i.am/
The installation consists of a three meters long neon framed text hangs of in the exhibition hall. It resembles a web browser window as the text in centre is a URL link: http://i-am-online-therefore-i.am It derivative of a famous Rene Descarte’s quote - ‘I think, therefore I Am’. While it is an artistic statement, that comments the new actuality, it remains with it’s URL address features and transfers to the virtual part of the work - a website.
The site displays the video, that is being real-time broadcasted by the webcam located opposite to the artwork, so that the viewer, who stands in front of it, is in the webcam’s field of view.
The screen next to the neon installation displays the video. By following the link on the smartphone or just by looking at the screen, the viewer sees himself in front of the artwork. The whole situation actualises the statement, enclosed in the link’s text. The viewer undergoes a transition from real to virtual, implementing the action that has become the norm of our everyday life, like stepping over the blurred borderline, that had become barely visible.
'The Link' was included in various shows and was included in the permanent collection of S. Kuryokhin Center. The website and video broadcasting are active during the times 'The Link' is being exhibited.