Georges Legrady / The Clearing
"The Clearing" is an interactive computer artwork that deals with
the representation of the Bosnian conflict in the language of the
Western news print media. Viewers interact with a moving hunting
photograph to scan a range of topics on Bosnia. They can choose
any of 30 categories to examine news quotes imbedded in the
photograph. Different points of view are identified through color
coding: The Bosnian Muslims, the Serbs and outside news
commentaries.
The viewers' experience of information search through the computer program interface is designed to reveal traces of vision technologies' origins in military and medical applications, a particular kind of seeing that can be described as "search and destroy" or "hold still while I examine." By situating the Bosnian conflict into the familiar computer game format, real world content is introduced into a form generally not known for criticality. This approach provides an alternative model by which information can be disseminated and retrieved from digital databases.
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