by Isabelle Jenniches, 2005/6
71,5" x 70,5" (1,82 m x 1,79 m)
Digital Lightjet print on Kodak archival paper, reverse mounted on acrylic with composite backing.
the call depicts the Vancouver Convention Center Expansion Project, a monumental construction zone in Vancouver, B.C. The left side of the diptych shows an early stage in the construction process and reveals a desolate landscape of broken concrete and mud with tracks of heavy machinery. The second part zooms in on different stages in the construction of the foundation on land and water on some 1,000 piles.
To create these composite panoramas I appropriate user controlled online still cameras, that allow for candid monitoring from a distance and over long time durations. Many miles away from their actual location yet connected via the Internet, I direct these cameras to scan the picture plane bit by bit. Over the course of months or sometimes years, I capture thousands of images and in a tedious manual process, stitch them together into a panorama of great complexity and detail. This process of assembly uses a visual grammar borrowed from cinema –repetition, montage and manipulation of time. Each individual webcam image is a true photographic representation of one moment in time and space, yet the sum of their arrangement has a hyper-realistic effect.
In the call different stages in the construction process, the changing seasons, tides and weather all get compressed into one composite landscape. The movements of construction workers and passers-by appear as filmstrip-like sequences, and combined in the picture, they form micro-narratives. For example, the visit of a group of VIPs in dark suits and their entourage of nervous foremen has been captured over the course of one morning and then condensed into one scene. In another detail a construction worker has been repeatedly caught on camera while installing boards over a steel I-beam construction, balancing high above the water.
the call has been shown at the New Forms Festival in Vancouver as part of the exhibition Transformations (September 19-24, 2006).
During the festival the audience had the unique opportunity to visit the actual VCCEP construction site and to compare this direct, first hand experience with the live webcam view and the composite image on exhibit.
Production of the call is supported by the The Netherlands Foundation for Visual Arts, Design and Architecture.
This work emerges out of the long-term network practice of artist Isabelle Jenniches who has worked in a wide variety of creative net-based activities. The particular piece, "The Call" is one of several process-oriented works that she has initiated that depends on the network availability of generic user-controlled web-cams. The works are constructed over a long period of time -- time spent watching the selected scenario, remotely -- life-time spent observing the world. Thousands of images are made during a methodological process of deep-looking through this mediated network eye. The extended seeing and repetitive digital operations on the thousands of gathered images acts to frame a meditative daily routine. The cumulative practice approaches the classical Zen expression -- "there is no web-cam, there is no PhotoShop, there is only the Void" -- and it arises through the post-Cartesian possibilities of a commonly accessible network interface. Recalling David Hockney's early Polaroid work, "The Call" is an intimate and intense personal vision of a scope rarely manifest in the click-through eye-candy world of the net. (John Hopkins)
view another composite webcam panorama: flotsam (2003 - 6)
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