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NARCISSUS

NARCISSUS is an experimental video and series of large format prints created using the Kinect sensor and Processing 2.0, exploring the nature of love and tension in the line. The ambiguity of perspective in 3D imagery, makes it appear as if the main character in the piece is both lover and loved at the same time, reinforcing the idea of a passionate need that cannot be fulfilled. This work is inspired by a 1976 drawing of Colombian artist Luis Caballero, who died of AIDS in 1995, whose work was a painfully ecstatic, homo-erotic portrait of a generation that was just coming out of the closet. Almost 40 years later, we find ourselves in a Lipovetskian era, where narcissism appears to be the counter-balance of the erotic angst. The technical concern of NARCISSUS is the creative process not the final display of the work in a gallery. The performance itself is altered because of the usage of technologies that question the traditional role of the movie camera's single point of view. The camera is replaced by a spacial capturing device such as the kinect, and the code in Processing translates the data into perceivable lines, in low resolution. When the body can be seen from any angle, it is the eye of the author that determines which angle to choose in the final editing process.

  • SANTIAGO ECHEVERRY
    Director
  • SANTIAGO ECHEVERRY
    Producer
  • BRADLEY EDMONDS
    Key Cast
  • Satellite Ensemble
    Music
  • Project Type:
    Animation, Experimental, Short, Web / New Media
  • Genres:
    LGBT, erotic
  • Runtime:
    4 minutes 50 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    September 19, 2015
  • Production Budget:
    500 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    United States
  • Shooting Format:
    DIGITAL
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Dialogos con la Coleccion del Museo
    Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogota
    October 1, 2015
    Latin American Premiere
    non competitive
Director Biography - SANTIAGO ECHEVERRY

Santiago Echeverry is a Colombian-American New Media Artist and Professor, with a background in Video Art, Web Design, and Performance Art. He started his artistic career in 1989, participating since then in some of the most important festivals in the world, and he is considered a pioneer in the field of Net Art and Queer Filmmaking in Latin America. In 1992, he graduated top of the inaugural class of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia’s Film and Television School. In 1995, he was awarded the prestigious Fulbright Grant to earn his Master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU. He started his academic career in 1993, and is currently an Associate Professor and co-founder of the recently created Film, Animation and New Media Department at the University of Tampa. His research is focused on volumetric imaging, interactive web development, and creative coding. All his works and projects are available online at www.santi.tv

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Director Statement

I grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, a city where the mafia was blowing up buildings and murdering people with drugs and bombs; AIDS was killing my friends and death squads were threatening my life for being openly gay. Instead of seeking cover, I became a very visible New Media artist promoting change in my surroundings through video art, documentaries, performances and political activism.

With some roots still left in Colombia and now in a more secure environment in the United States, my work has progressively evolved into a study of the nature of how we perceive and recreate ourselves in a digital context. I am particularly interested in the dialog between low and high resolution imaging, studying and exploding the pixel grid to push the possibilities of static and moving images, using basic webcams and kinect sensors to explore three-dimensional self-portraits, animations and interactive installations. At the same time, I am creating high-resolution photos, videos and performances involving video mapping where the story of each participating person affects the visual outcome.

I moved to New York just as the Internet was beginning to expand and I immediately used the Web as a creative tool where all my art practice would come together, with a global component that was previously unavailable to me. The Internet has become the perfect tool to explore my passion for non-linear filmmaking, digital poetry, cyber-activism, creative code, photography, animation and interactive narration. I am using HTML5 / PHP / CSS3, Processing and video tools to produce my works, continuously exploring new open source software and hardware.