QR.TV — eugenio pizzorno

qr.tv (teaser)

2012, Eugenio Pizzorno

audio visual interactive installation

artist

Interactive Audio Visual Installation
Goldsmiths MA Degree Show 2012, London
RemixedNYC 2012, New York
MediaCircus 2012 @ LaMama Theatre, New York

The sound of the installation attracts our attention, but even before entering the shrine, just by looking at the caption, we are put in front of a language game: a code which we can not decipher if not with the aid of a smart device. We are at the gates of the digital divide, haunted by the nightmare of participation.
Entering the shrine we stand in front of an iconoclastic totem of cosmic marketization: an anachronistic stack of five cathode ray tube TV sets, representing the five elements that constitute the classical taxonomy of the cosmos.
Aether, the fifth element, is set at the top, displaying the white noise captured by the TV aerial antenna. For each of the other four elements there is a dematerialized QR code that rematerializes for 10'' every minute.
The drone is the symphony of the elements: each one has its specific sonic aura that resonates as the code is displaced, and turns to silence when the code remerges becoming recognizable.
If the appropriation of the message fails, blame your medium, or your internet provider; although some apps are incompatible with the refresh rate of the CRT displays, in most cases the smart tablet will redirect us beyond the code, to the net, where the real content is delocalized.
To each commodified element corresponds a short advert that provokingly engages with the collective imaginary, exploring the semantic network of conspiracy theories through the critical detournément of recent media events, embracing the aesthetics of user generated content, suggesting intergalactic fantasies that offer a catharsis balanced between apocalypse and palingenesis.
Through the skeuomorphic design of the analogue totem, the trendy new medium is presented in its twofold techno-cultural essence: the danger of total commodification and the saving power of profanation and invention.