Split Screens
Deconstructed digital displays, revealing a fragmented reality
Split Screen - Barak Chamo (2020)
Split Screen I juxtaposes the aestheticized and sterile representation of nature as a subdued backdrop to a human-centric world, slowed down elements and over-exposed landscapes, with first-person records of families as they battle terrifying fires, desperately attempting to rescue their homes from natural disaster that are the result of extreme imbalance.
Split Screen II presents a real-time cubist portrait that breaks the image of the viewer into may disjointed blocks, akin to the way in which we splice our own digital personas to fit rubrics of expectations and modes of communication in online communities and social networks.
Split Screen is a series of video sculptures made of depolarized LCD televisions and suspended shards of polarizing films. The depolarized displays, while fully functional, present images that are not visible to the naked eye, appearing as blank white surfaces. As the observer looks at the screen through the suspended polarizers, the image is revealed in either original or negative colors. With this series I wanted to deconstruct the digital image and break it apart from the “black boxes” that are the modern means of image-making (from phones to computer and televisions). These image devices, often seen as portals into a remote reality, present a view of reality that is, in both physical and social manner, reductive and fragmented. The fragmented display is complemented by video works that each address a different aspect of life that is thus reduced.
Bill of Materials
Modified large-format LCD displays
Polarizing optical film
Raspberry Pi
web cameras
