Candy

2012

Digital Artwork, exhibited at:
Hangar Centre de producció i recerca d'arts visuals, Barcelona and
Meta.Morf 2012, Norway.

You are sitting on one of those chairs right now.
Suddenly, You feel an increase in salivation.
Craving for something.
Something very specific.
Seeing how this plater is revealing your inner emotions.
Noticing how food shows subtle transitional spectrum.
Gripping the utencils is an inner music and vibration.
Your movements are turning slow...
In a cinematic stop-motion.
You feel like you want to invisibly ingest in heaven!
There`s a reason to breath in and out.
Your vision is turning you into a distortion.
A noise to your ears, an annoyance to your eyes.
You change back to your old self,
With an understanding of a single phrase -

Your desire plugs and unplugs you.

Candy is an audio-visual experimental piece that addresses the metaphorical homogenisation of individuals brought by our evolving consumption and technology. Reflects on the triumph of the manipulative campaigns in the culture industry, and the challenges of the innate human pleasure circuits. Circuits that are driven by our primitive desires and supernormal stimulants that are capable of pressing our pleasure buttons. Candy gathers information from the social space for aesthetics and truth, which includes visual artefacts, personal statements and consumer campaigns and projects them on a physical multi-sensory space.

The artwork invites the participant to reflect, sit, relax and to physically explore a dining table as a diner. A menu is served and the diner chooses a dish. The dish is presented on the table that serves to tease the gustatory nerves and to lift the sense of imagination and craving of the participant. The diner experiences a multi-sensory narrative medium that visualises the social networking world and electronic mass media for its influences on human preferences, consumption and pleasure in real-time. In real-time, the piece also amplifies the auditory sounds and noise associated with the direct interaction with food and the associated narrative medium.

In Candy, the visualisation shows the connection of our consumption of food to technology. Technologically enhanced meal is inevitably included in our daily consumption but we sometimes ignore the relationship of its form, function and composition to our everyday life and its relevance to our adoption of electronic media. The piece explores the role of personal relevance and hedonic experiences in the interpretation and appreciation of a medium. The art piece challenges the chaotic reality of the Internet and information space as a powerful complimentary medium in provoking heightened bodily sensations and interpretations.

Hardware:
Surveilance Camera + Manual Focus Lens, IR Lights, Active speakers with Subwooper, Pocket Projector, Digital Vaporizer, Suitable Herbs/Aromas

Hardware:
Uses PureData (PD) and Processing