A R C H I E F1 9 9 6  
.14
  Éder Santos
The lake and the mountain
  Brazil 1996
Installation
The increasing speed of the flood of electronic images that washes over us every day leaves us little time for reflection. The ubiquitous new media compromise, dismantle and fragment the view of reality in a blind desire for speed and 'real time access'. The image that TV presents to us is flat, limited and in particularly temporary. One image replaces another at high speed, our concentration span becomes shorter and 'zapping' is no longer just a TV term for viewing behaviour but rather a general state of mind.

"Images are transformed by the surface on which they are projected" states Édor Santos. He compares the flat images of the TV screen with the optical depth and details of film projections in classical cinema. By projecting images onto other surfaces, he attempts to rediscover a traditional contemplation of nature and landscape. In this installation images are projected onto an artificial mountain and a lake. As symbols of eternity, stability and rest, mountain and lake form, as it were, the screen, the background. Landscape as a kind of primaeval measure of things.

Two different images are projected onto this background. The sound track produces the natural ambience of a mountainous landscape. The images are from laser discs but are edited live using a computer algorhithm. This algorhithm brings an aleatory element to the editing which occurs beyond Santos' control. As an artist he only sets this process in motion. All kinds of unexpected image combinations are possible. He was inspired to try this approach by the I Ching (Book of Changes), an eastern logic of change and chance that assumes an open basic position and permits a more organic method of observation and experience.

Geert-Jan Strengholt

2 video disc players, 2 video projectors, 2 audio amplifiers, 2 speakers, 1 artificial lake, 1 artificial mountain


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