PERSPECTIVE
Published by Műcsarnok and C3 Center for Culture and Communication, 1999
In 1999, Műcsarnok and Soros Center C3 organized an exhibition on media art which was focused on the evolution and changes of representation based on perspective, the makers of the CD-ROM inform us right at the opening image in a spare-styled, short paragraph in which hypertext links flash. Yet, clicking on the first link the surface gets out of control, spinning images burst onto the screen, and the user goes on clicking and dragging the cursor really desperately to stop this dizzy motion but cannot help it. At last he notices something shining faintly on top of the screen that he takes for the menu but the words 'up' and 'on' are so strange. If 'up' takes him back to the opening image then 'on' is what remains, he assumes and, indeed, he has entered the heart of the labyrinth, the inside of the CD-ROM. The trial is worth the prize, there are moving images of historical devices used for illusion-making (in chapter Perspectiva Practica), Cesare Ripa's treatise from the Renaissance and Miklós Peternák's updated version, a collection of links, the history of perspective through a series of representations, engravings, and drawings from the 19th century, as well as, a room for beginners which smartly illustrates the keywords of perspective. The display of the contemporary art show is still less inventive than the navigation engine of the CD-ROM: clicking on the chosen artist one scrolls down the scroll bar blindly on the dark screen since to make the work (or part of it) visible one must drag the cursor to the place where the image should be but isn't.
(web)
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