History Is Personal.

This installation is to be shown on plasma screens in art galleries. Made in 2007 by Stanza. The images are real time downloading from a database system of hundreds of surveillance images. You need shockwave installed to experience this artwork and is no longer working online as from 20.8.2020 and can obline be seen on request for exhibitions.

Introduction

The History is Personal exhibition of artworks originate from our surveillance based culture. These works together create a re-mediated portrait of society and culture in the digital age. They become history paintings that reflect on the moral and ethical condition of our times.

Stanza's “History is Personal” are representations of the 'Big Brother' generation. The works display ghostly, chilling blurred images, each picture has a narrative, a history of time and place. Perceived as anonymous faces the subjects stare back at the CCTV surveillance cameras during their drunk and disorderly activities, like acts of defiance, whilst being snapped, trapped within the visual flicker of the ever spying eyes. As soon as they are captured for us to observe, they become shadowy reflections of our own selves feral representations of strange creatures in an urban zoo.

The darkness of these collected images allow us to observe our own subterranean fears, resting closely at the edge of what we as a supposedly decent society, accepts as normality. Yet there is a contradiction at play informing us that this is all too normal, part of the everyday. We are those people within these selected frames, as we scrutinize them, we judge ourselves.

The images from the series History is Personal once viewed will invade your life forever. These people are kicking you to death. The moral and ethical compass changes you and your perception. The footprint leaves a permanent imprint in your memory. The effect of the “event” evolves, it has its own DNA. The images are invasive: The boundaries have become blurred. They are fragmented between what you see and what has taken place. History is Personal are modern life fragments fluttering in front of your field of vision in this X factor age. They have cross your identity and imprinted themselves in you mind forever.

Availability.

The artwork is available in a limited edition series of 3. Each artwork is signed by Stanza.