I’m in the picture (German: Ich bin im Bilde).
2020, exhibition by Hidéo Snes and Vera Sebert at art space Periscope, Salzburg (AT).
I’m in the picture
The Viennese artists Vera Sebert and Hidéo SNES present contemporary art in the Salzburg art space Periscope in the field of tension between expanded painting, digital art, and contemporary literature. At the exhibition I’m in the picture, genres and categories implode. Their ruins form the foundation of an experimental space in which the ordering power of the gaze is questioned and visitors are invited to play with their own perceptual filters.
At Periscope, visitors find a situation in which art can be experienced playfully and interactively. Central questions are “Who are you?”, “What do you see?” and consequently “How do you look?”. They open up a broad field through their interconnectedness and through discussion. In their works, Sebert and Snes investigate which transformations the human gaze undergoes. This gaze is not only defined by the nature of the human body, but also by the process of gazing. Starting before it even leaves the eye, until it sinks into the surface of a digital screen, and finally looks back again, completely fragmented, in the form of what is seen there.
What idea of corporeality is conditioned by this reciprocal process, which entails a constant, mutual inscription in body, language, and program codes? The works of Sebert and Snes simply refuse to fit into the pigeonholes of traditional art terms. Artifice from the realms of op art, internet art, and mathematics are used by the artists to deconstruct contemporary epistemology with humor and subtlety, making it accessible at eye level.
The focus is on interactive moments that can be digital or analog, but in any case, continuously challenge visitors to doubt their own view and the concepts associated with it. For example, a radio play invites visitors to look inward and sense what audio-visual stimuli do to the perception of their own bodies. Elsewhere, it is a computer game that can be played in the browser of a desktop PC and lets visitors play not only with what’s onscreen but also with the perception of time and space in your own memory.
From the first second a visitor enters the art space Periscope during the exhibition of Sebert and Snes, it is the familiar, the well-rehearsed, and the known that is questioned with charm and humor.
Supported with funds from the state of Salzburg.
