Wildlife Offline - Detonation Edition

Employs spectacularly realistic special effects to explode conventional
representations of endangered animals. The series of projections delivers captivating slow-motion pyrotechnics. Using thousands of familiar cartoon illustrations of species that may soon exist only in zoos, this video-installation lays waste to the cute illusions that haunt many species on the edge of extinction.

Wildlife Offline's Detonation Edition is nature as you've never seen it before.
It appears that irony and curious spectacles are among the last devices that can captivate attention for a depressing topic like extinction. The work addresses the shocking quantity of endangered species, driven to extinction by human population growth and habitat destruction. The title combines the dynamism of "online" media with the term "offline," which indicates something that is no longer functioning,-- a euphemism for death and extinction. As with any artwork that deals with serious and disturbing subject matter, Wildlife Offline must invite viewers to engage with it, and it accomplishes this through a wide array of illustrations, cartoon images, and caricatures. Looking at these illustrations engenders a kind of visual pleasure: each one is a little different, like a taxonomy of cute animal mascots and avatars. Eventually, though, analyzing and enjoying this variety of images leads to cognitive dissonance. As we move from one endangered species to another, the significance of the collection becomes clearer. Then, of course, the animals explode. The realism of the simulated special effects complements the virtuality of the illustrations, representations that have a very slight relationship to true environmental conditions. This focus on animal simulacra, detached from the disturbing circumstances affecting real animals, reminds us of how our familiarity with images can cause us to forget the dire situation faced by the species represented.

The proposed work would extend an existing work of Net Art. The serial format used in the Web version is not very satisfying. A browser isn't the right medium. The commission will permit us to develop a far more impactful and satisfying form for the ideas staged previously online. Redesigned for physical space (6th floor, presumably), it can become a more significant work. In its new form, the work will consist of a series of twelve separate compositions, each featuring a different animal (tiger, lion, whale, ape etc.). Each composition, occupying an area of approximately 3m x 2.5m, combines a large projection with many small, printed animal images. Among hundreds of smaller icons, the central projected image is a large bust of a recognizable endangered species. Comprised of light and moving very slowly through a variety of expressions, the strange temporal and representational conditions evoke a metaphorical imprisonment of the species. The slow motion adds to the discomfort, making the explosions rather surreal.

Over the past ten years I have used projection more and more as a means of bridging Net Art with physical exhibition contexts. This proposal continues this pattern. It is an opportunity to continue developing the Wildlife Offline concept, which has already generated a DVD, multiple exhibitions in Israel, and the online version. These parts can work together in a broader project, involving a catalogue and an essay. These elements together can form a coherent and powerful whole, an indirect assault on the creeping indifference towards the disappearance of nature.