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The Prix Ars Electronica Archive is a collection enabling search and viewing of all the submissions since 1987. The award-winning projects are documented with catalogue texts and audio-visual media. All other submissions can be searched by title/artist and displayed with year, category in list form. Please cite the credits (artwork name, artist and photographer) and only use the materials if your article is related to Ars Electronica.
OUTNUMBERED, a brief history of imposture
Jasper Rigole
_Outnumbered, a brief history of imposture_ is an audiovisual installation that examines concepts such as authenticity and objectivity by taking a quasi-encyclopedic approach and presenting it with pseudo-scientific precision. The result is an apparently detailed study of the history of falsification.
The video projection in the first part of the installation shows a camera moving over an old school photograph, using the pan-and-scan effect. This technique is frequently used in documentary films to animate still archival footage. As the camera moves from one face to another, a voice explains who these students are and what their mutual relation is. According to the narration, the boys depicted are historical figures, some well known and others more obscure. They all seem to have a link to imposture.
In the second part of the installation it becomes evident that the first image is live and generated by a machine on which a panoramic school photograph for 1936 is hung. The machine is an inversion of the traditional rostrum camera. Instead of the camera moving, the photograph moves in front of the camera.
The whole system, its movement as well as its narration, is controlled by a computer that runs through a complex database which includes the names and biographies of 888 figures. Each biography is provided with metadata referring to different categories, such as occupation, specialties, peculiarities and so on. By detecting similarities in this metadata, the computer is able to link related biographies and generate a plausible story. This perpetual narrative follows an aleatoric system that allows for an infinite number of changes to occur. As the computer does not take all the categories into account and sometimes uses irrelevant information, it will often make mistakes and broadcast historically incorrect data. But because there are analogies in the successive biographies and the transitions seem logical, these mistakes can be seen as possible histories.
Links: http://www.jasperrigole.com/
The video projection in the first part of the installation shows a camera moving over an old school photograph, using the pan-and-scan effect. This technique is frequently used in documentary films to animate still archival footage. As the camera moves from one face to another, a voice explains who these students are and what their mutual relation is. According to the narration, the boys depicted are historical figures, some well known and others more obscure. They all seem to have a link to imposture.
In the second part of the installation it becomes evident that the first image is live and generated by a machine on which a panoramic school photograph for 1936 is hung. The machine is an inversion of the traditional rostrum camera. Instead of the camera moving, the photograph moves in front of the camera.
The whole system, its movement as well as its narration, is controlled by a computer that runs through a complex database which includes the names and biographies of 888 figures. Each biography is provided with metadata referring to different categories, such as occupation, specialties, peculiarities and so on. By detecting similarities in this metadata, the computer is able to link related biographies and generate a plausible story. This perpetual narrative follows an aleatoric system that allows for an infinite number of changes to occur. As the computer does not take all the categories into account and sometimes uses irrelevant information, it will often make mistakes and broadcast historically incorrect data. But because there are analogies in the successive biographies and the transitions seem logical, these mistakes can be seen as possible histories.
Links: http://www.jasperrigole.com/
Technical realisation: Gert Aertsen (http://lahaag.org). Construction: Ian Ghyselinck. Programming: Jan Willem de Haan. Narration: Richard Wells. With the support of HISK, AON Artscope, KASK.
Jasper Rigole (BE), born 1980, graduated from the film department of the Academy of Fine Arts in Ghent (KASK) in 2004. In 2008, he finished a two-year post-graduate course at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK). Currently he is working on a PhD at the University College Ghent, (KASK). His work includes single-screen video works as well as installations. His main project at present is the “International Institute for the Conservation, Archiving and Distribution of Other People’s Memories” (IICADOM).