Training Center

Interactive installation, 2005
Samuel Bianchini

Programming: Emmanuel Méhois
Production: Dispothèque

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Training Center, Samuel Bianchini, 2005
PLAY(S) - International Digital and Multimedia Arts Exhibition, in the framework of the 3rd China International Animation & Digital Arts Festival, Changzhou, China, from September to October, 2006.
Photographs: © Samuel Bianchini - ADAGP

The interactive installation Training Center presents the televisual image of a football match. The still image, which takes up only a small part of the wall it is projected on, can be activated with the mouse placed on the control stand, which allows viewers to grab the ball by clicking on it. The cursor then takes on the shape of a small hand and a click of the mouse immediately animates the image. But the latter, contrary to what we might expect, circles around, seemingly following the movements of the ball/ cursor. Viewers train the image just as much as it trains them to understand its functioning and how they can manipulate it. The entire mechanism of the activities set in motion is revealed when viewers stop moving the cursor around, but continue to hold on to the ball. At that point, the image and the players continue to move, but the ball remains still at the spot chosen by the viewer; these spots can change, of course, prompting different movements from and within the image.
The ball, a vector of exchange, has been intercepted ‘by hand’ to become an object of negotiation. The spatio-temporal center of a media event has shifted to a singular viewer, who can seize it and replay it. The situation stages the power relations emblematic of the relationship between mass media (television) and new medias (the internet), between a collective media event, broadcast so as to be simultaneously shareable, and the individual seizing of the media in accordance with each person’s temporality.

Training Center, Samuel Bianchini, 2005
Video - 1mn33s - High band request
Images and editing: © Samuel Bianchini - ADAGP

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Training Center, Samuel Bianchini, 2005
Training Center, solo exhibition, La Villa Formose, Galerie de l’École supérieure des arts et de la communication de Pau, France, from May, 2005.
Photographs: © Samuel Bianchini - ADAGP

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