Paranoid Panopticum

show overview
Performance & Installation
2000-2009
Amsterdam/Berlin/Hannover/Karlsruhe/Split/Karlsruhe
Produced at V2_lab Rotterdam in collaboration with ZKM Karlsruhe Software design: Carlo Prelz, Aadjan van der Helm. Thanks to: Viviane de Muynck, Jeffrey Shaw.

Nederlands: zie onder

Part of the ZKM Karlsruhe collection

Supported by:
The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Architecture and Design
Amsterdam Fund for the Arts
Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie Karlsruhe (ZKM)

Shows:
ZKM Karlsruhe 'Meisterwerke aus der Collection' 2004
ZKM Karlsruhe 'Intermediale' 2003.
Transmediale Berlin 2002
Stadhuis Delft
Universiteit van Amsterdam, faculty of psychology 2000
Exposorium Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam 2009

Project Description:
Entering The Paranoid Panopticum you will run across your own fixation on control. While you will be able to control the visual by mirror and video- projection, a shift in the perception of reality takes place. Controlling changes into fear of being controlled, maximizing control becomes its own threat. In the Paranoid Panopticum you are haunted by your own mirrored projections. You can play with your own projection in a paradox based on the myth of Echo, Narcissus and his mirrored image. At the moment where Narcissus commits suicide, the mirrored image of the visitor is ‘suicided’. At this point the story starts over again.

The text in the installation is based on an Echo play (1923) by Alfred Kreijmborg. The lines of the characters in the play are spoken by Viviane de Muynck and Hermen Maat. The visual appearances of Echo and Narcissus are alternately played by the mirrored projections of the visitor and actress Viviane de Muynck.

In the installation the visitor is haunted by his own, mirrored projections. These projections start a dialogue with the pre-recorded images and texts of an actress and a male voice. This dialogue reflects on ones self-image and is based on the story of Echo and Narcissus. The multiplication of this image through the visual control possibilities of the mirror, live and semi-live video projection alienates the visitor from his own self(image). When the (projected) visitor meets the (projected) actress, he is confronted with his own fixation on control: Who am I? Who do I meet? How am I manipulated? With what image outside myself can I identify? These thoughts become part of the projected video image. At the same time the work shows the surprised the visitor a painterly video-portrait, in which the image of himself meets the image of the actress.

Technical The installation consists of a non-transparent privalite-glass, 1 meter high 3 meter long, which can change into a mirror. Opposite this wall there is a projection-screen. The spectator walks in-between the projectionscreen and the mirror. The mirror is permeable from behind so a video camera can record the spectator. This recorded image is projected on the screen opposite the mirror. As a consequence you see yourself looking over your own shoulder in the mirror. On the projection-screen the recorded images of the visitor are played back.These images are digitally 'live' added in a story played by Viviane de Muynck and the Visitor.

Project beschrijving
De bezoeker wordt in de installatie achtervolgd door zijn eigen, gespiegelde projecties, die binnen de geprojecteerde ruimte een dialoog aangaan met vooraf opgenomen beelden en tekst van een actrice.
Deze dialoog gaat over het zelfbeeld en is gebaseerd op de mythe van Echo en Narcissus. De verdubbeling en veelvoud van het zelfbeeld middels visuele controlemogelijkheden van spiegel, live en semi-live videoprojectie vervreemden de bezoeker van het eigen zelfbeeld. Wanneer de (geprojecteerde) bezoeker een ontmoeting aangaat met de geprojecteerde actrice, confronteert dit met de eigen fixatie op controle:
Wie ben ik? En wie ontmoet wie? Wordt ik gemanipuleerd? Met welk beeld buiten mijzelf ik me kan identificeren?
Deze gedachten worden onderdeel van het geprojecteerde videobeeld. Tegelijkertijd wordt de gedesoriënteerde en verwonderde blik getoond met de schoonheid van een schilderachtig videoportret, waarin het beeld van de kijker en de actrice elkaar ontmoeten.