SUSANNA FLOCK / INTERNATIONAL RESIDENCY AUSTRIA / I DON'T EXIST YET
The work I don’t exist yet adresses the issue of stand-ins of computer-animated characters (CGI). They were created for cinema’s ‘bag of tricks’, in order to create visual effects. Initially invisible for the viewer, the computer-animated characters only come alive through mathematically simulated textures.
As a central motif, Susanna Flock sheds a light behind the phantom costume of CGI, i.e. behind that façade that produces almost infinite possibilities of visualisation of thoughts and fictions, and which exists away from the constraints of physical laws.
The invisible constructions of digital effects are dissected to render the body of the apparently bodiless tangible. There on the back stage we see as yet unanimated representatives, which turn into subjects only once they have been digitally processed.
If an actor or actress speaks with a mythical creature, for example, one’s viewing habits are not disturbed; however, if its digital textures are removed from the fairy-tale figure, a green, shapeless object remains behind, which, stripped of magic in this way, unsettles us.
‘Potential’ stand-in objects, which in terms of form are based on the aforementioned green screen stand-ins, were designed for the project. They were staged in various settings. They become the main actors in an experimental video work. The title I don’t exist yet hints at an adopted CGI figure that has not yet been provided with texture, i.e. is unrendered, and which leads through the work as a narrative voice.
The scenes with the stand-ins are extended by scenes which deal associatively with themes that move between the virtual and physical, the visible and invisible. In a certain way, CGI characters have no physical referents, for the stand-ins are only substitutes in order to provide orientation to the 3D programming and to give the actors something tangible to work with. Thus, the CGI creatures resemble phantoms, where the stand-ins are their material anchor. Using the example of the computer-animated characters, the aim is in this way to deconstruct image surfaces and to thematise the ‘disembodiment’ found in technical, virtual worlds.
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// Artist and studio-apartment residency exchanges between Québec and Austria //
Considering the importance for the Government of Quebec to develop lasting cultural ties with Austria, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ) concluded a two-year partnership agreement in 2014 with the Government of Austria to carry out an exchange of creative and resourcing residencies in visual and digital arts. These residencies are intended to promote the creation of durable bonds and the cross fertilization of approaches between artists from Québec and Upper Austria, thus fostering their artistic development.
As part of this exchange, a Quebec artist will be able to stay two months in one of the nine studios included in the Atelierhaus Salzamt international artists residency space in the City of Linz and an Austrian artist will complete a creation residency of the same duration at the SPOROBOLE centre in Sherbrooke.
The artiste thanks the Academie Schloss Solitude for its contribution to the project.
Photos : Magalie Leclerc
