Title: WORLD / MUNDO Year: 2006 - 2012
Type: Interactive Streaming Video
Link: http://santi.tv/world
Youtube sample: http://youtu.be/GjUEPeVPIRw
WORLD is an interactive display of video and audio memories captured with my cell-phone camera in low resolution. There are more than 3850 videos and 400 audio clips from my trips to Paris, Istanbul, Boston, Bogota, Miami, as well as shots and sounds from my everyday life in Tampa, FL.
The 20 clips you see on display are the latest videos uploaded to the server. Whenever I add new files, they become visible chronologically in the grid. As soon as the user clicks on one of the visible clips, a random video and audio file will load and start playing. Because of the amount of video and audio clips, and the random access to the database, the chances of having a matching image and sound are extremely small. The resulting combinations - including the spatial display - will always be different, creating an interactive movie with almost unlimited combinations.
Once the videos are pushed beyond the most recent 20 clips, they fall into what I call "the bottomless memory pit", which is an analogy to the way our brains work: random events may bring out random memories from the past by association.
WORLD explores the pervasive nature of portable cell-phone cameras. This technology allows me to capture intimate moments. This is how the user can witness - for example - the funeral of my murdered brother Diego, the carrying of his coffin and the sadness of my family during his burial. There is one unifying element in the project: the author as a witness or a participant in every single one of these events.
WORLD also explores the nature of digital memories. When I started shooting video in the 80's - using tube cameras that weighed at least 20 lbs and tapes that allowed you to record maximum 20 minutes - taped souvenirs were a luxury. With portable cell-phone cameras that fit in your pocket you can capture hours of video wherever you go. We all record memories with our cell-phones trying to preserve a moment that may never be experienced again. High resolution is not the question here: we all show with pride pictures of our families and nephews and pets on the little cell-phone screen. The sentimental attachment overrides any display quality limitations.
I am also very interested in exploring the essence of interactive film. WORLD is an ongoing movie that will always be different. It equates to a tarot card reading where the growing number of cards increases the semantic interpretations by spatial and aural associations. It also reminds us of the early editing experiments made by Lev Kuleshov, in Russia, where by rearranging a series of photos spatially the viewers would interpret them in radically different ways, proving that the order of factors DOES affect the result when it comes to story-telling.
If you play all the videos sequentially the resulting product would be a several hour film that captures the last years of my life. In this Acquired Attention Deficit Disorder Era, WORLD allows the user to experience as many clips as s/he wants and to create unlimited personal associations. These non-categorized interpretations may prove that humans are not that different after all because we can all relate to similar situations regardless of our cultural background.
Instructions: rollover the videos to enlarge and click on them to change the audio and video source randomly.
Requires the latest flash plug-in • Visit my work on umallicuy.tv
OPEN WORLD NEW WINDOW | FULL SCREEN
