Experimentation with Resurfacing : By Ward Market / a prototypal project at the Mercury Lounge

The hand makes contact with the touch screen and a second layer or time reveals actions wich took place before hand. Subjects as well as architecture are bathed in various light shows according to the time or day, the amount of sunlight and the angle of view of the archived images of the By Ward Market. Thus begins a narrative interaction between the camera movements and the gradual unveiling of the pixelized videograms.

For example, a sampling of blues generated by the october daylight describes the possible modulations of this northern autumnal light. In termes of artistic organization, the pixels are alternatively textured or monochromatic. Fragmented forms enable the spectator to acknowledge what is present while considering what comes from the past. René Payant said it best when he wrote that:

« The image builds itself while it is also degrading itself. What is the true nature of this object we aim to describe? Is it describable? Is it an object? Its description can not be photographic neither will it have the rigidity of the positive perspective. The object will be a correlate linking two activities : a cognitive construction (from an epistemological standpoint) and a narrative construction (from a semilological standpoint). This highlights the fact that any description is an operation, not a mere translation, which inturn creates both the object and the stabilizing elements which enable a description ».

These multiple displacements translate themselves into micro-moments bearing a different set of meanings for each existence. Pre-determined pauses between travellings and still shots create a feeling of objective distance. The automated observation program which controls the camera surveying the By Ward Market prevents the interactor from exploring the pictural space at will. There is no complacency here: the camera selects alternatively elements of a public environment. We stop acting as spectators to become anthropologists involved in a quasi-clinical experiment. Time frames and varying view points are explored and communicated to the observers which gain insight in the rituals of this urban space. Non-linear numeric representation revisits social interactions in this human mosaic enshrined in transitory time frames and spaces.

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