Catàstrofe

Espai 13

Exhibition program
Cycle: "Singular Electrics"
Author
David Hoffos
Dates
Curated by
Jorge Luis Marzo, Rosa Sánchez i Tere Badia

David Hoffos was born in Montreal in 1966 and lives and works in Lethbridge, Canada. In this installation, Hoffos invites us to reflect on technology in the context of its relationship with illusionism and its potential as a medium for creating an illusion of reality. Profoundly interested in image technology prior to the arrival of the motion picture, Hoffos conceives his installation as a cinema-theatre in miniature, where the reality seen above a model is filmed and projected in real time onto a cinerama or "telerama" screen.
So, when the visitor enters the Espai 13, a number of sensors set off a projection around him of scenes of make-believe catastrophes - earthquakes, hurricanes, volcanoes in eruption, air crashes, shipwrecks, fires, etc. As he approaches the model, he finds himself immersed in these disasters and, because he is being filmed, becomes both the subject and the viewer.
David Hoffos tries to demonstrate that with this illusionist component, almost like a conjuring trick, he is able to bring the spectator on to the stage, and by immersing him in the spectacle both the perspective and the critical sense of things is lost.