Information
Technology
Descriptions & Essays
The society is always changing in a consequence of complex patterns of influences. The changes do not occur in a smooth flow but happens at different speeds at different times. The development of technology is given great importance in the history books. Technical revolutions have changed societies as much as ideologies. Often the development of technology and ideology seems to go hand in hand, influencing each other. In the end of the 20th century we could see how our society went through a metamorphose from a society based on industry to a society based on information and communication under influence from the development of IT-technology.
As individuals we all take part in the development. We influence our surroundings and we are in our turn influenced, often without thinking of it. In several of his pieces Peter Hagdahl has been working with questions on how individuals influences and are influenced by the society. His pieces investigate the relation between the virtual digital world and the physical "real" world. In pieces like Under Influence/Trabsformation and Transformation model 7 the audience was influencing a virtual world, whether he or she wanted it or not. I digital film was affected by the appearance of the viewer. The physical motion then had a virtual consequence that could be seen in a projection on a wall where the piece was shown.In his new piece, Simulated social model no2 (sensoric transformation), on Beeoff Hagdahl takes the discussion further. A camera is placed somewhere in Stockholm where it registers motions in traffic and people walking. The registration of the camera is converted to impulses that are sent via Internet to the Beeoff studio just outside Stockholm. In the studio the impulses influences a 3D-animation.That means that the individuals passing by the camera are influencing a digital milieu placed far away. The result, the digital influenced animation, is then shown at several places in Scandinavia and on a web site.Hagdahl's piece becomes an interesting social sculpture and pictures complex relations in society. Who is influencing who? How does the technology influence the individual and society and vice versa?
The camera, wherever it is placed, will not gain any attention. The people passing by will not know, and will not ever know, that they with their motions influence a digital animation. Still audiences all around the world will see their interaction with the technology.It is easy to draw parallels to how IT-technology can be used or misused. Our daily life is registered in many ways and we almost never think of it. Our lives are transformed to data in different digital worlds, data that creates basis for changes.When Hagdahl uses Internet the discussion is widen. The distance between the physical reality and the digital reality is larger. More and more the digital world becomes a Freudian dream developed by impulses from an unconscious physical reality.
Björn Norberg
(source: www.peterhagdahl.net)
Literature
Exhibitions & Events