Madrid Mousaic, 2005
Influenza
Interactive installation
The project uses approximately 500 photographic images of the city of Madrid offering different points of views which, when combined, create various narrative possibilities. Each group of images generates a whole that is rearranged as other images are incorporated and altered, based on the dataflow generated by sound captured on the streets and Metro of Madrid, mixed with ambient sound captured where the installation is on exhibit.
The project aims to work at the most abstract level of urban data, like a rough mass that allows us to create an aesthetic semantic whole, mixing “real” sounds and images in new combinations that generate a result between the symbolic and the abstract, which gave rise to the neologism “Mousaic”, something between a mosaic and a muse, two words with similar semantic roots. The objective is to emphasize the fragmented, residual character of urban spaces and the digital environment.
The project seeks to portray the relation between urban space and social groups from a fragmented perspective, which allows for the continuing reconstruction of new narratives. The fragmented message constantly incorporates new social, material and informational elements. The noise of the streets as people walk along, of summer neighbourhood fairs as a metaphor for a city like Madrid, which, like all large cities, can only be experienced in a fragmented, multiple way. The subject belongs to one or more small centres, creating different narratives (and different meanings) of the city. Creation in digital media has a direct relation to that fragmented subject and the project seeks to relate experimentation in social networks with computer networks.
Concept: Rafael Marchetti and Raquel Renno.
Artistic Creation: Rafael Marchetti. Theoretical Research Review: Raquel Renno.
A project in collaboration with Fundación Banquete and MediaLabMadrid