Andrey Tarkovsky’s Nostalghia (1983) ends with the famous traveling of the camera which reveals the gradual transition from the scene showing the protagonist in the Russian countryside, to the framing image of a Tuscany chapel interior. The third stage of the uninterrupted shot reveals that this chapel has no roof and that it is open to weather conditions, and the scene closes as it begins to snow in this hybrid interior/exterior. A second example is Diesel’s advertising campaign Global Warming Ready (2006) featuring collages such as Mt. Rushmore depicted as a seaside cliff, or Venice full of colorful tropical birds instead of the “flying rats” we are more used to. These disparate concretizations share a common theme, a combination of two seemingly incompatible spaces in a single place. Usually, the purpose of such locational catachresis is to point to a specific sociopolitical issue, which can be either complex, as seen in the contemplation of the relationship between the Russian and Western understanding of the world, represented by Tuscany in Tarkovsky’s work, or it can be only half-serious, as seen in the advertising campaign which aims to raise the global public’s awareness on environmental issues by showing images of shocking yet attractive habitats in which natural balance has collapsed long ago. The “green desert”, the underlying theme of Pixxelpoint, therefore builds upon the controversial contrast between something beautiful, yet dead, with the positive connotations of the color green, which obviously has no place in a desert. While there is still a way out of this conundrum, the proposed solution is limited to the technologic simulation of reality. The other solution is to achieve the change in man, to strive to increase our sensitivity for the delicate balance in our environment, which is not merely a resource to be exploited but rather a complex set of interweaving worlds sharing the same space, and these worlds appear different to different eyes.
Narvika Bovcon in Aleš Vaupotič
Curriculum Vitae
Narvika Bovcon is a new media artist. She lives and works in Ljubljana and Nova Gorica. Aleš Vaupotič is a new media artist and art theorist. He lives and works in Ljubljana. Together these two artists run ArtNetLab, Society for Connecting Art and Science. From 2004 to 2006, ArtNetLab was the flagship organization for a national program in the field of intermedia art. Both have exhibited their work in numerous independent and group shows in Slovenia and internationally. Selected curatorial projects:
