"Article 30" explores the potentialities of virtuality as a discloser of the reality’s problems problèmes du réel, a catharsis allowing humans to analyze their own dysfunctionnings and uncohenrences.
Visionnaries of the sixties as Vannevar Bush or Ivan Sutherland saw in Vortual Reality (VR) a mean to bettre manage the complexity genrated by human tekné and development. A mind expanding tool .
This installation has been conceived, realised and produced by Les Virtualistes. It focuses on the 30th article of the Universal Declaration of human rights.
"Article 30" is a virtual reality installation designed and developped by Les Virtualistes, on the basis of the 30th article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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- ARTICLE 30 : Nothing in this Declaration may
- be interpreted as implying for any State, group
- or person any right to engage in any activity
- to perform any act aimed at the destruction of
- any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
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« Article 30 » is a labyrinth inhabited by images, images of war, misery and human
sufferings, images of the planet’s syndromes, skillfully distillated by media so as to vanish into oblivion.
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The labyrinth is used as a metaphor of the world’s non-sense, of a surveillance and
control society and of our own feeling of helplessness: we wander in this world
looking for an exit, a solution. We are submitted to its randomness, with no real clue
for changing it. Should we therefore agree to be passive observers? Our presence
affects directly our environment. Interaction is the word. But is it? Turn right or left,
hear or listen, see or watch, forgo or make use of our freewill and all its embedded
consequences?
When facing an image, the space fills up with voices, echoing presences reading one
by one, in ten languages, the 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Reminding us that we all bear responsibilities for the disorders of the planet.
Responsible we are. For doing nothing. For willingly respecting them or not. For the
choice of weapons and for endorsing the ensued collateral damages.
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« Article 30 » raises the issue of « humanitarian war », the last end-of-the century
avatar of humanitarian action, in complete contradiction with article 30 of the
Declaration it claims to respect. The recent interventions of the «international
community» - in Somalia, Kosovo, East Timor - are obvious signs of a new world
order proclaimed by the states - America in first position - which have enough military
might to ignore international laws and public opinion. They are nothing but gruesome
games of influence, killing 90% of civil victims on behalf of an absurb «zero death»
objective.
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Credits : Pascal Schmitt, Christine Treguier, Erik Adelbert,
Hervé Arnoud, Paul Brock, Stéphane Daloz
with assistance from Virtual Presence Ltd
Many thanks to those who lended their voices
Les Virtualistes 2000