This second solo show of Rosa Menkman at Transfer Gallery, features a new installation of Menkman’s research into the compromises implicit in image processing technologies. For ‘Behind White Shadows’ Menkman extends her virtual reality piece ‘DCT:SYPHONING. The 1000000th (64th) interval’ beyond the headset into the gallery, projecting on a monumental sculpture: the Spomenik for resolutions that will never be and presenting topographies of her 3D environments.
To accompany this exhibition, Menkman releases a new essay ‘The White Shadows of Image Processing: Shirley, Lena, Jennifer and the Angel of History’, presenting her recent research into color test cards.
The central piece in the show ‘DCT:SYPHONING. The 1000000th (64th) interval’ is a fictional journey through the historical progression of image complexities, told as a modern translation of the 1884 Edwin Abbott Abbott novel “Flatland”. Menkman leads us through a universe of abstract, simulated environments, made from materials evolving from early raster graphics to our contemporary state of CGI realism.
At each level, Menkman’s virtual world interferes with the formal properties of VR to create stunning and disorienting environments, throwing into question our preconceived notions of virtual reality. In doing so, ‘Behind White Shadows’ casts light on some of the problematic issues surrounding the emergence of 3D technologies, asking questions such as: what do the hegemonic conventions of sight obscure? And: who gets to move beyond the frame and decide the perspective?
Works:
- DCT SYPHONING (VR, installed in niche behind Spomenik)
- Spomenik (sculptural installation w/ projection mapping)
- An Ecology of Compression Complexities (map, archival print)
- A Behind White Shadows glow in the dark patch
-︎ Behind White Shadows of Image Processing :: the research cabinet and essay
A warm thank you goes out to TRANSFER (Kelani Nichole), Casey Bloomquist (for helping with the building of the Spomenik), DiMoDA (William Robertson and Alfredo Salazar-Caro for their help and support of DCT:SYPHINING) and Mario de Vega (who designed the Behind White Shadows pdf).
