10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17368
application/pdf
2038-3460
17368
2
en
Alvaro Cassinelli
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
Ouroboros (Cover’s Comment)
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
8
Editorial
2018-01-29
2023-06-24
2018-01-29
2023-08-24
TS
Alvaro Cassinelli
2017
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17368
2038-3460
2
en
Ouroboros (Cover’s Comment)
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17368/16224
8
                                                     Cover’s comment


Ouroboros (2008) by Alvaro Cassinelli

“Ouroboros” is a shared virtual space, a world-scale tunnel built by
chaining video-conferencing cameras and projectors in a closed loop
around the world. This virtual space comes into contact with the Earth at
several entry points or “Gates” situated in different cities, each standing
in a location particularly representative of the place (public squares, mar-
kets, private homes, etc). Each Gate is simply composed of a projection
screen, a video camera a little far away, and an “interstitial” public space
in between. The camera captures the whole view – that is, the passersby
and the standing projection screen blended in the background – and the
resulting live stream is sent over the Internet to be projected onto a simi-
lar structure – in a different city, in a different country, in a different
continent. The process repeats itself until the loop is completed, as the
final video is projected back onto the first screen – only to restart a tour
in an eternal circulation. In its (almost) instantaneous travel around the
world, the video stream will gather “souvenirs” of the visited places. Peo-
ple from all around the world will appear on the screen as standing in the
middle of a tunnel whose walls are composed by an infinite recursion of
(Matryoshka-like) nested video windows; one can recognize the actual
location of the shooting in each of these rectangular frames.

http://www.alvarocassinelli.com
