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CROWD COLORATIONS

Statement

The use of colored water cannons against participants in a demonstration is an old police force technique increasingly widespread. Apart from dissolving the group, it aims to tag the individuals for subsequent identification. It is a primitive form of current digital tracking technologies, as the ones that have come to light parallel to the massive demonstrations of citizenship all around the world these last years. The installation stems from this double nature of the digital: on the one hand, it helps collectivities to emerge; but on the other, it has an unusual power to track the individuals. Next to an image of a colored water cannon against groups of people, a vertical projection lightens an aerial photograph of a demonstration. Over it, a layer of fragments of colored petals cover the area occupied by the people in the picture. The projector, with the aid of a computer, maps the petals over the image and, while making them glow, fictionally introduces a surveillance-like moving shadow, a hovering elliptical drone-like presence as an ubiquitous scanning machine.

Biography

Abelardo Gil-Fournier

Artist and educator. His work is settled around the crossings between the abstraction of systems and the specificness of social and cultural objects. His projects are elaborated as platforms -installations, devices, tools, games and workshops- that mimic open laboratories where to erode, distort and transform standard production processes.Some of his work has been developed in artist residencies in Laboral Center of Art (Gijón) and the spanish broadcastSome of his work has been developed in artist residencies in Laboral Center of Art (Gijón) and the spanish broadcast television Canal+, or as commissions of institutions such as Intermediae in Madrid, CROMAFest in Mexico DF or the open hardware company Ultra-lab. Some of his projects have been shown in international collective exhibitions and festivals (US, France, Sweden, Spain) and reviewed in mainstream blogs (BoingBoing, wmmna). He has taught workshops on creative coding and game design in several countries (Spain, France, Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador). Additionally, he collaborates continuously with other artists or collectives, such as Maria Andueza, Raúl Alaejos,

Artist Website

http://abelardogfournier.org/