UBC | Digital Visions

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Web and cinema share many artistic as well as technical elements; for example the use of images, audio, text, and editing. They also differ in a fundamental way; Cinema is a linear form of experience, web is an interactive presentation incorporating some time based elements. In a cinema you are expected to sit and objectively perceive what is on the screen, web encourages a subjective interaction as well as it involves a passive Observation. It is interactive and paced by various temporal elements that are either controlled and incidental. For example the pace of the presentation can be controlled by programming, the incidental nature of the internet or the playback format, the way the data is downloaded read or processed by the computer. Web covers a more dynamic range of perception and attention spans.

However, does the audience perceive these visuals to be truthful representations of the artists’ current frame of mind, or are they a construction of sorts? It may be argued that the lag time between transferring a concept from mind to tangible form loses some of its translation, but Kouladjie justifies this by acknowledging aspects of her work as abstract and fictional. Her memories and conscious thought are constructs and the images aid in applying them in a tangible form.

The ‘days of my life’ project could be compared to a movie in a sense that it is a fictional reconstitution of my personal memories incorporating elements gathered from my daily experiences, our collective consciousness, the mass media and the reflection of our life in the internet.

Shirin Kouladjie was born in Iran in 1965, and has since become the epitome of multinational; she has traveled and lived in places all over the world. Her keen interest in mathematics started her career path in science, but was later supplanted by her creative desires as an artist. Rather than abandon her past interests, she incorporates mathematics in almost all of her artwork. In 1989, she moved to Canada and enrolled in Experimental Arts at the Ontario College of Art, and since graduation her career choice has been met with numerous successes. Her influences include Joseph Cornell, William S. Burroughs, John Waters, David Lynch, Woody Allen, Almodovar, Pasolini, Hannah Hoche, Nan Golding, Boltanski and many others. Since 1998, Shirin has almost wholly embraced interactive/web art. She has developed various websites including 5hirin.com, n3xt.com, and photomontage.com. No longer does one need to wait for a museum to exhibit art; the web, and ultimately her art, is open for viewing at all hours to anyone with a computer.

Written by: Clio Chiang

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Site: http://www.photomontage.com