closerthantherealthing

press release
by Caspar Stracke

"Being There"
review by Keith Sanborn

How much compression in digital imagery can be tolerated before an image's expression and meaning are unacceptablycompromised?

The forced reduction of details in digital media are a well known restraint, one that artists have often utilized andcontextualized witha certain aesthetic pleasure.

Many makers have simply moved objects (or sometimes body parts)
a bitcloser to the lens
and therefore ask the viewer to move closer to the screen.

A video that is intended to be seen on a smallscreen reflects
something lively when showing objects life-size
-- or even larger,
closer than the real thing.

Phyllis Baldino "Nanocadabra" [excerpt] 1998/99
Extreme closeups tease familiarity, bright colors and shifting synthetic surfaces animate ambiguous
interactions among pattern, color, movement, and mass. – D.L.

Rolf Gibbs "G" 2000
A bomb's eye view of gravity, grace, and the fear of flying. Reclaiming the 360-degree spin as you fall
back to earth. – D.L.

Masaki Fujihata "Impressing Velocity - C3 version " 2000
Virtual "speed" is rendered by fusing two-dimensional car motion with three-dimensional imaging
structures. – K.S.

David Larcher "IchTank" [excerpt] 2001
Philosophical meditations on the porous invisible foldings of electronic and "real" space. – K.S.

Volker Schreiner "Open up" 1991
Windows, doors, blinds, curtains, fences, and gates open and close, recalls a range of other famous
sequences of opening and closing.

Larry Shea "Hydropilia" 1995
Elemental animation forced on water with food color via a static charged glass plate. Sound is the star
that steals the show, contradicting the speed of the main characters.

Roberto de la Torre "Las Twin Towers" 2001
With a name like de la Torre ("of the Tower"), the artist rises to the Duchampian bait of such an
occasional intersection.