Adela Muntean
ADELA MUNTEAN (b.1988) is specialized in film / TV directing and media design. She is a PhD researcher, media designer and curator. Her primary activity deals with the reinterpretation of immersive media in the digital era in the context of interactive documentary and contemporary media art.
Between 2016-2018, within the new media departments entitled The Future is Now (Astra Film Festival) and The Dome of The New World (Electric Castle), she implemented for the first time in Romania the dome-shaped cinema with a curved screen, on the surface of which experimental films, documentaries and children’s stories were projected. The immersive cinema project was complemented by multimedia documentary productions made by using the virtual reality technology.
Her publications include “The Algorithmic Turn in the Found Footage Filmmaking: The Digital Remake”, Disegno Magazine no 1/2016, Budapest; “Death in Trial and Full Version: The Graveyard”, Textural Video Games, Milan 2014.
Her works were presented at the Art Museum and the Architecture Film Festival in Budapest, at the Architektur. Film. Sommer Festival in Viena, at Live Performers Meeting (LPM) in the Netherlands, at Sophia Digital Art Festival in France, in several net-art galleries in Paris, Moscow, New York, Times Square’ Arts Alliance program and in Romanian exhibitions such as Kinema Ikon and Media Art Festival in Arad and Mora, Salonul de Proiecte, Internetics or Design Week in Bucharest. As an invited tutor she led several workshops at BIEFF-Nisi Masa, and in her free time, she develops educational workshops for children, using analog and new technologies.
Awards: Balkan Documentary Center (2018 Belgrade); HelloDesign Talent Award (2015 Budapest); Digital Vision – GéoCulture (2015 Limousin); Digital Art Storytelling (2016 Livorno).
Courses taught: teaching assistant in scenography, special effects, animation, digital practices at the Hungarian and Romanian departments.
POISONED PARADISE – In my virtual exploration I found on the map another city which was iconic for communist industrialism and is considered one of the most polluted towns in Europe, Copşa Mică. The polluted area was marked on the map in shades of strident neon colors, like a deadly poisoning plant which attracts attention by using such a visual trap. Suddenly I was experiencing the digital version of the place, a sensation of colored territory which I could never have in reality. The more I zoomed into the space the more colored it became.
Live Stream Facebook Surveillance ThreeJs – Surveillance cameras as webcams and the gesture of observing others through Facebook profiles, the digital landscape and digital human portraits environments online.
PIXEL PUZZLE MOSAIC – In today’s electronic era the predominant characteristic of this new genre of media is that ‘does not have any fixed finite boundaries’- „a pixel is generally thought of as the smallest single component of a digital image”1 , which today arrives at the highest levels of digital values: gigapixel, terapixel, gigapan, etc.
A gigapixel image is composed of one billion pixels; and a terapixel image of one trillion pixels: Google Earth’s Landsat images viewable as a time-lapse are collectively considered over one terapixel. GigaPan Systems combines high-definition images and panoramas with sharing, tagging and zooming capabilities. The software offers a solution for shooting, viewing and exploring high-resolution gigapixel images in a single system2. Under slow internet connection or low computer graphic capacities we see the whole image uploading in small pieces.
PIXEL PUZZLE MOSAIC reflects on this contemporary shifting and fragmented media and reveals their common pattern: creating a final image from different small parts: a picture made up of various other pictures (PHOTOMOSAIC) or the PUZZLE which requires the assembly of numerous small pieces.
The video presents layers of different time zones of the earth; the never-ending fragmented landscape giving the viewer a textural experience. The plurality of overlapping images, the tessellation of space are following the 8-bit sound library and the images are manipulated using video effects named as mosaic, pixelate, tile, etc. to connect this way of imaging with various soft wares which produces them.
The video is following the characteristics of Google Earth: the images are not showing a fixed image of the earth, but rather a worldwide network of media in flux, producing endless new experiences of the earth3.
AUGUMENTED MONEY tracks the relationship between money, identity and society. Banknotes of 1 leu, 10 lei, and 100 lei are removed for the duration of the exhibition from their daily context to become media-carrying objects that cause us to rethink the role of money as a symbol of capitalizing on the human potential and the value system they represent. We know how much money is worth, but how much does a human being value in dealing with money? Monetization of human value and the symbol of money in social discourse are pursued through a series of media works – photographs, interviews, collages, 3D constructions. Spectators are invited to discover encoded media messages in banknotes exposed through their own smartphone, using augmented reality technology that facilitates access to a mediated reality, bringing the physical reality elements in which we live in a direct relationship with the object they represent.
Lines and Dots (2015, GIF), consists of an intervention on one of her father’s technical maps. Of profession engineer, he designed several sewerage systems in villages, and the artist draws a parallel between the technical sketches made by her father and her own multimedia practice.
DIGITAL SCULPTURE PARK-LIMOUSIN – ARTIFICIAL & NATURAL: 3D sculptures in video landscapes which explore the GEOLOGY, LANDSCAPE and CONTEMPORARY ART SPACES of the French region LIMOUSIN
((THE INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF ART AND LANDSCAPE at VASSIVIèRE ISLAND- “…LANDSCAPE CREATED TO LOOK LIKE IT WAS A NATURAL PARK IS IN REALITY TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL. A make-believe island.”))
The gesture of virtually placing 3D ANIMATED SCULPTURES in VIDEO LANDSCAPES –comes as an EXPERIMENTATION to complete the SCULPTURE’SWOOD at the INTERNATIONAL CENTER OF ART AND LANDSCAPE at VASSIVIèRE ISLAND with DIGITAL ART, and by this means to connect with the CONTEMPORARY ART SPACES of LIMOUSIN, FRANCE.
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As the artist who creates land art (site-specific art ) takes and mixes the textures from the landscape, today digital artists have more than ever access to virtually explore the earth by the means of technology: organic and irregular, the sculptural aspect of the XYZ representation- shape, texture, movement, background-is modeled using digital textures from the Limousin region*( example: printscreen of a rock wall taken in Google street view, Google earth patterns of time, photographs), etc.
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The sculptures can transcend the digital space in any time: today with 3D printers, real time filming and projecting the sculptures can turn alive (MIXED REALITY) in the natural landscape of the International Center of Art and Landscape just to make a further step in the relationship between ARTIFICIAL AND NATURAL: “The beauty and unique character of the centre are a consequence of a paradox: LANDSCAPE CREATED TO LOOK LIKE IT WAS A NATURAL PARK IS IN REALITY TOTALLY ARTIFICIAL. A make-believe island.” ( Matylda Taszycka-Review of Contemporary Art Centers and Museums)
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ABOUT THE SCULPTURES|
Geology has something to do with our identity: the land where we were born, our body which *returns to earth*….some people even take small pieces of ground or rocks from the place they visit/like. The specificity of a region makes it unique: all the textures of the XYZ sculptures are digital textures from the Limousin region; all the shapes of the XYZ sculptures are inspired by different region of Limousin:
1| RED ROCK(sandstone) — Collonges-la-Rouge is a commune entirely built with red sandstone.
2| WATER – The artificial lake Vassivière created by man in the 1950’s.
3| GRASS — La tourbière de Longeyroux- the scenery is stunning; this place is associated with many legends. On the site of the Hundred Stones, where large rocks emerging from the bog, is expected to appear “des lutins”(goblins) and other ” autres farfadets.”
4| PHOTO-SCULPTURE — 3D sculpture build from photos of the Limousin region: Rochechouart*(place of a meteorit); Les landes de la Croix; Gouzon; Rigole Diable; Oradour-sur-Glane-Hardware; Linaigrette flower; CIAP map; print screen textures taken on Google Street view *(Masgot wall, Uzerche,etc.)
5| KAOLIN — The discovery of kaolin in St. Yrieix by Jean-Baptiste Darnet in 1768 is responsible for the growth of the famous Limoges porcelain.
6| TEXTIL — Les “ Bonnes fontaines “ – iconic heritage- more than 200 fountains “miraculous” were worshiped in the Limousin. It is very common to find around these fountains pieces of fabric or clothing leaved there by people who are on the mend as sign of devotion. The TEXTIL sculpture is built with a texture from photography of these special clothes.
ELECTRIC JUNGLE – Obsolete computers are reused in public space to exhibit digital art.
GOLD is a net-art project// artist will be invited to send *gold-like* works which will be exposed in the Rosia Montana space// indie video-game in which the viewer can travel into space and watch the exposed golden artifacts like in a gallery.
Roșia Montană Project is a gold and silver mining project initiated by Roșia Montană Gold Corporation in Roşia Montană, Romania.
REMEMBER ANDY WEBCAM – A webcam is placed at Adny Warhol’s grave. Pop-up performances and gifts are placed at the grave.
DONUT TALK TO ME – A public spectacle- mass-produced doughnuts made in machinesIn the 1920’s the most important step in doughnuts’ ascension to mass-consumed food was made – doughnut production was mechanized by Levitt’s and the doughnut machine was clearly at the cutting edge of a revolution in how foods could be mass-produced. Doughnuts quickly became an accessible, every-man symbol of progress and seeing them produced “automatically” by a machine somehow made them part of the wave of the future. In production, the doughnut became a public spectacle.
This sort of streamlining is now standard organization among fast-food chains- we do not always seem especially interested in seeing many of our foods being produced by either a skilled chef or an automated process.
A public spectacle- mass-produced *unique* consumption experiences posted on the Internet, a popular “indulgence”.
Ironically that in the 21st century a host of doughnut producers has now turned to the manufacture of gourmet doughnuts. Gourmet doughnut shops run by professionally trained chefs use a host of organic and artisanal materials and make creative if idiosyncratic flavors (e.g., Doughnut with homemade pear jam, Cabernet glaze, blue cheese honey drizzle, etc.). These doughnuts perhaps defy the machine-made doughnut that dominated markets for nearly a century, instead appealing to a consumer’s desire for culinary creativity and a unique consumption experience breaking with the mass-produced glazed doughnut.
But too much good makes bad- the unique consumption experiences posted on the Internet become mass-produced.
INFINITY – Humanity is evolving to infinity and is getting lost in its own construction.