DIGITAL TRAUMA (And the Crystal Image) – TRT 8:00
If we can access our past at any given moment, to what extent can we get rid of it and look ahead? What consequences do the access to a digital memory (including access to the words, images and sounds of the horrors of the past) have for post-conflict societies? Can a digital memory become a powerful tool to ignite more profound ethnic hate, violence and war?.
The unprecedented availability of online databases offering media-based documentation of the past can change people from passive consumers of history to interactive researchers. This creates an interesting scenario because it’s now easier to evaluate and compare contrasting representations of the past but also to create and disseminate fabricated versions of the past with its dangerous consequences.
The Crystal Image (Deleuze) describes a moment where a past image becomes fused or confused with its presentness. In the film, postproduction is used as a conceptual tool to “traumatice” the Digital Image itself by using the slit scan technique. This effect creates images of time-based phenomena by merging different layers of time within a single image. The result is a liquid time, where the present becomes fused with the stream of images from the Google search box.
All the images and sounds are the combinations of the real result from typing the words in the Google search box.
MARIA MOLINA PEIRÓ is a filmmaker and audio-visual artist with a background in fine arts. She works in an open format mixing film, animation and digital media. Her body of work comprises Film, interactive installations and video art.
María Molina ́s films and art works have been showcased in international art spaces like EYE Film Museum (Amsterdam), MACBA (Museum of Modern Art Barcelona), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) Berlin, Centre de Cultura Contemporània Barcelona (CCCB), Círculo de Bellas Artes (Madrid), Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC) and International Festivals including Art Futura (Barcelona), Forecast Forum (Berlin), DC Independent Film Festival (Washington DC), Amsterdam Spanish Film Festival, Festival de Cinema Independent de Barcelona and Ibrida Festival among others.
María Molina Peiró ́s work explores, among other things, the fluctuating nature of time through different time-scales. She is particularly interested in how the ubiquity and pervasive nature of Digital Technology is reshaping the view of our past and therefore our identity.
Her portfolio includes collaborations with filmmakers like Julio Medem (Caótica Ana), Elías León Siminiani or choreographers like Daniel Panullo (Suite de Calles).
She ́s based in Amsterdam.
17 Days Video Series 
Pingback: Journals: Gallery, Workshops and Lecture Write-Ups – Xavier Sosa
Pingback: 17 Days Write-Up – Jeremy Calo