Friday 16 July 2010

Image Fugurator at Checkpoint Charlie



Here the name says it all: disruptive tactics are put in the service of political action. This is the dominant purpose of Image Fugurator. The project has been used by its creator to convey disturbing political messages at popular tourist attractions, for instance by projecting a text protesting the building of a wall to prevent illegal immigration into the US at Checkpoint Charlie, a remnant of the Berlin wall which should stand as a witness to the infamy of separating people with walls... The destructive character of Image Fugurator is rather mild - the project affects only occasional photos, without damaging the functioning of cameras - compared to the program of the most radical form of political dysfunctionality: the sabotage of computer systems associated with oppressive forms of power. In the early part of the twentieth century, artists were drawn to abstractionism, Dadaism and Surrealism as a reaction against realism, which was seen as an artform reflecting the values of bourgeois society - values we would attribute today to consumer capitalism. Political dysfunctionality continues this trend, by using the computer to undermine the infrastructure of the social and economic system that was build in a large part through digital technology. (Ryan, 2008) 
Ryan, M.-L. (2008) Between Play and Politics: Dysfunctionality in Digital Art. [Online] http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/imagenarrative/diegetic [16/07/2010]