[C/i/a] picturing utopia, part ii

 here it is..  Imaging apparati and network technologies are two fronts of development that have invoked dreams of a different kind of reality. In fields as diverse as the sciences, the military, as well as arts and entertainment, the former is employed to create images that reflect or project something of the natural and the artificial, and the interaction in between. Via newly proliferated channels provided by advances in network technologies, the images circulate amongst individuals involved in specialized enterprises; often, their distribution also extends to the general public. As images and the technologies become increasingly available, the sense arises of there being more possibilities of participation than ever before. There arises the sense that by actively perceiving, transforming, and relating information streaming through the channels, one jacks into a collective circuit and becomes involved in a widescale undertaking towards some yet unexplicated, perhaps perfect, ends. Poised before the possibilities of appropriating the use of images and instruments to take part in discoveries and creations, one's continual activity and involvement with peers, whether strangers and friends, become an ends to themselves. [The original image is a still captured from a film of mine. It's transformed in Photoshop. The mosaic in midground is created by sampling and cropping (and degrading) a number of random and select images.] [ref: 8.02.2005-02:54pm : fournos]