Articulations of the Self 1
Participants are asked to enter their contact names and social media info (Twitter and Instagram) before entering the performance area.
Two TV screens serving as digital mirrors are mounted side by side on the wall. Performance artist stands in front of the left TV while the participant is asked to stand in front of the right one. TVs are equipped with camera and depth and colour sensors.
The installation gets activated as the participant and the artist both smile at the mirror and repeat a Sufi refrain from a Persian poem by Rumi: Man Na Manam, Na Man Manam! Slowly half of the face of the participant dissolves and gets replaced by that of the artist and vice versa. In other words, the two faces are cut vertically through the nose line and merged into one another. A 10 seconds grab of the screen gets recorded and processed live into a short video.
A separate large screen projection is set up at an opposite end of the room with a visual mosaic placeholder including some texts, videos and blank spaces. As the performance generates new video portraits (also posted on Instagram through specific hashtags), randomly these videos are projected into the large screen. Videos are interchanged with texts and animations using transliteration of the refrain and other words from the poem. A line under each video will show number of likes on Instagram and the exact time of the merging of bodies into one video performance.
