M E T A C I T Y _ V I D E O 2012
In una piazza tre ragazze passeggiavano e tutte e tre scrivevano sul
cellulare senza parlarsi ma tenendosi per mano… come dire stiamo vicine
ma siamo distanti le une dalle altre.
Nella sua semplicità quell’immagine mi ha particolarmente colpito. Allora
ho pensato a come le relazioni tra le persone stiano cambiando profondamente:
nei luoghi pubblici, nelle piazze, negli autobus, anche tra amici ci si ritrova
ad essere vicini ma distanti, ognuno preso da cosa succede online senza
rendersi conto di essere offline per chi si ha
affianco. Questo isolamento determina un non-spazio intorno all’individuo,
o meglio un’architettura invisibile che divide e separa le persone. L’intimità
di questo spazio sta divenendo sempre più importante, assumendo delle
connotazioni quasi sacre ed inviolabili, in quanto determina una sorta di
seconda “casa” che ci consente di disconnetterci dal mondo circostante.
Probabilmente questa sorta d’isolamento è fisiologico ed irreversibile, e
l’aumento del numero di cellulari ed apparecchi multimediali per individuo,
soprattutto in Italia, ne è un esempio anche in questo momento di crisi
economica mondiale. L'uso del cellulare è in aumento perché l’avanzamento
tecnologico e gli imperativi della comunicazione rendono le persone dipendenti
da questi oggetti, ne consegue una sorta di tirannia dell’Oggetto e
della Macchina e allo stesso tempo una sostanziale inconsapevolezza di
quanto sta accadendo.
Il video METACITY parla dell’isolamento del navigatore connesso alla rete,
dove i pezzi del computer diventano zattere o piccole piazze alla deriva.
L’architettura della nostra vita sta cambiando e bisogna inevitabilmente
seguirne il flusso.
Senza alcuna pretesa di monito educativo, ma con la semplice intenzione di
fermare lo sguardo sulla cultura contemporanea, da questi presupposti
scaturisce la necessità di costruire una visione metaforica della nuova realtà.
Nasce così un viaggio verso un Altrove fatto di vestigia di tecnologia
obsoleta. Pezzi di modernariato presi da vecchi pc dismessi divengono piazze e
grattaceli, e campi verdi di natura sintetica. Città fluttuanti lievitano
sospese su un mare di Luce Neon che si fa Demiurgo ubique e
incarna forse l’idea prossima di una nuova spiritualità oltre i confini della
tecnologia. O l’infinito nulla a cui nessuna tecnologia può sottrarci.
In questo non-luogo dialogano primati, simbolo del
potenziale evolutivo umano e allo stesso tempo visione sarcastica di un certo
modo comune di lasciarsi rincoglionire dai vari network.
In METACITY c’è solitudine e alienazione, ma anche infinite possibilità
di creare collettivamente e partecipare di un TUTTO che non deve prescindere
dal nostro quotidiano-->
In a plaza, three
girls were walking alongside each other. This perfectly merry scene of social
interaction, however, was strangely divided in its function. You see, it struck
me that each were engaged in conversation, but instead of amongst each other,
the conversations were confined between three different people who were not
there. This strange scene was enabled by the now so ubiquitous technical
device, none other than the mobile-phone.
This scene, in its
strange divided simplicity particularly struck me as I became more attentive to
the thought of how relations between people seem to have fundamentally changed
in a relatively short period of time. In squares, public transportation, even
when with friends, the opportunity of 24/7 ‘connectedness’ provided by such
technological advancements seems to have lodged its way into our lives and the
social fabric in a way which is rapidly becoming the norm. It is no longer, it
seems, considered rude, or even sad, if one takes their leave in a social
situation merely to engage in another one through social-sharing websites or
‘texting’ with people not present. On the contrary, this activity seems to be
earning the status of acceptability. On the one hand, in some ways, it severs
the immediate social experience, yet on the other, it provides a replacement in
the opportunity to transgress, as it were, the spatial limitations set upon
social-connections in the way of negating distances between people. At the same time as such spatial limitations
are seemingly nullified, however, it might yet be more the case that the
negation of distance is just transferred from another place to another, for it
is whilst engaged with modern communications technologies that the individual
is effectively subject to a non-space which occurs in their being cut off from
their present situation.
This state of affairs
is seemingly irreversible and seems almost pathological to the extent of
becoming physiological and the increasing proliferation of mobile-phones and
multimedia equipment, especially in Italy, even in the climate of current
economical trouble, serves only to further accentuate this phenomenon.
The more this
technology takes over and the conventions as to its use are morphed into
everyday life, the more people become dependent of such technologies regarding
even the social realm. A sort of Tyranny of the object takes over under the
pretence of ‘better communication’.
It is this in mind
that the video Metacity was
conceived. This video tries to capture some of this paradoxical isolation
involved in ‘better communication’. In it, pieces of computer components have
become small rafts adrift amidst the changing architecture of our western
lives, floating on a flow of inevitability. Without any pretence to preach, the
idea of this video is to enable us to distance ourselves and reflect upon this
contemporary situation.
In this way we seek
to initiate a journey elsewhere, an alternative place, through what are the
ever-changing remains of the ever-advancing technology, the components of which
in their short life-cycle before becoming obsolete are fashioned the objects of
floatation keeping our heads above the surface while at the same time taking us
ever deeper into the running rapids of their advancement. Fluctuating cities of
such obsolete components flourish under the basking rays of the demiurge of
neon-lights where all spirituality is the advancement of the object. In this
strange place where space is negotiated in terms of negation and addition the
human evolutionary potential in the form of primates navigate these blocks of
space, reflecting their own capacity to interact by surfing on top of rafts of
defunct technology while ever curious of their own reflection. Here in Metacity, there is loneliness and
alienation, but also infinity of possibilities to create collectively and
participate by interchanging spatial relations, navigating space-blocks.
Operator, I would like to place a call to... As such, the video aims to
question assumptions that may otherwise be too close for us to recognize.
