Didier Volckaert - 3D Turnaround
The monumental and alienating aspect of (Ant)Arctica often produces beautiful but empty images. What is common to all these images is their flatness, both substantively and visually.
"VIEW MASTERING" is an optical installation which seeks neither to aestheticise nor inform. It doesn't have good intentions. It is a use experience and a viewing experience. These experiences are based firstly on action and consequence, secondly on contrast and sensuality.
"VIEW MASTERING" is based on Dead Media technology: systems and devices that have fallen into disuse and are often forgotten, and thus are 'dead'. These are devices which are rarely explored for their wider range of possibilities. Even before their utility had become well-established they were already replaced by newer systems, which in their turn would all too quickly join the ranks of dead media themselves. This is a consequence of economic necessity within our consumer society. In 2008 the technology turnover rate was somewhere between 5 and 10 years. The latest additions to the ever-growing dead media mountain include film stock and dia film; soon to be followed by (digital) videotape.
The recording device wich was used to make STEREOSCOPIC photograms was a VIEWMASTER CAMERA dating from 1952. It is an entirely mechanical device and doesn't even have a battery. It has been tested at -30°. Looking at such images is a solitary and intimate experience. During that time, the viewer is visually closed off from the reality around him. Furthermore, the stereoscopic effect produces an alienating proximity, as if the image were tangible.
Only light is necessary in order to look at the images. The current for the light source is provided by the viewer himself, through the physical action of turning a handle. The speed of turning determines the amount of current ... and thus also the light in which one sees the image.
"VIEW MASTERING" confronts, eroticises, romanticises and demystifies in order to allow the viewer to reflect about water and what it means for him or her. Just like ice is a frozen state of water, the pictures are a crystallised form of various layers of meaning, frozen in a stationary image.
The work does however allude to "l'origin du monde" (1866) by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877). He too didn't paint reality more beautiful than it was ...
HOW LONG DO YOU USE TOYS OR GAMES AND HOW QUICK DO GET RID OF THEM KNOWING THAT THEY END UP ON THE GROWING RUBBISH PILE? THINK TWICE BEFORE YOU BUY THE NEWEST CRAZE!