Videokratia (1997) Globalodromia, Kunsthaus Tacheles Berlin
Video- Lat. I see κρατία [ kratía] gr. rule/domination
Domination of the watching/seeing
In a very silent way and with minimal intervention the work Videokratia tries to make something that is “hidden” “visible”. With a small change in perspective this work shows a different view from the one that we are use to seeing.
The work Videokratia includes one TV screen, which plays any TV program. That’s it. Only with one small difference. In this case the observer does not get to see the screen but the back of the emitter (the TV-screen) and the reflection on the wall from the light of the monitor. The observer doesn’t get the “real picture” of the TV-Program. So the “real picture” in this case is something else, not the “picture” which is emitted. The emitted picture/the “real picture” is hidden.
In this case everything except the emitted “picture”/”the real picture” is the picture. First, this work is not a work but a kind of “reflection” of its own self! This work doesn’t try to explain what is shown in the “real picture”. This work gives the observer space to analize it on his own.’
For example, this work open the question about the relation between the spectator and the transmitter; the recipient and the sender.
Who does the observer look at, in the moment of observing this work? The spectators who are watching that particular program?
So the observer watches: What other spectators are watching at the same time? How many people watch this TV program? What kind of people watch this TV program? Is this TV program a kind of connector of the people? What do these spectators have in common? What kind of information can the transmitter collect about the TV spectators? What kind of power does the transmitter have over the masses of people?
This work gives the Observer the opportunity/possibility to see the work and to imagine the spectators who watch “this” TV Program. In this case the observer is the one who is “watching you”, watching them, watching the spectators. In this case it is not big brother who is watching, but the observer. In this situation/ in this work, the observer stays in the middle/center of the room, but at the same time he is the one who “stays behind”.
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