The Romanian Pavilion –
Selfie Automaton
Commissioner: Attila Kim
Curator: Tiberiu Bucsa
Exhibitor: Tiberiu Bucsa,
Orsolya Gal, Stathis Markopoulos, Adrian Arama, Oana Matei, Andrei Durloi
“Selfie Automaton reflects on the characters and actions embodied by the
puppets that are nothing but dispersed parts of our own and can be combined or
split, in search of a self portrait, be it of an architect or of anyone else.”
Romania. The
Romanian exhibition brings an automated puppet show, a set of closed scenarios,
leaving a missing role: the one for the visitor. Caricatures of characters,
fantastic animals, golden eggs, music boxes and mirrored reflections are
assembled in predefined show parts that place the visitor on stage, in various
positions, as dynamo and puppet in the same time. The authors thus propose a
generic portrait of social relations, stereotypes and wishes, broken into
pieces, to be reassembled by the user’s imagination, in an introspective self-portrait,
or perhaps a selfie. It could be all just entertainment or it can be seen as an
absurd show. It raises a few questions, but it certainly does not give answers.
Romania. To
define the role that was given to marionettes in the exhibition, the authors of
“Selfie Automaton” approached puppetry, where it is common for the manipulator
to play with the meanings and possibilities of control. One is that the
marionette can, and should, cross the usual human limits, of gravity for
example, as it can jump and remain suspended. Another, to a tragic extreme, is
to let it become aware of its manipulator and cut, or not, its own strings.
Still, no such possibilities of escape were used for the installations. Even
though constructed with the necessary joints that would allow them the “freedom
of movement”, the wooden puppets are unstrung and literally nailed into a
mechanism that allows them nothing but one predefined repetitive movement. And
the visitor is no exception. Seated as part of the automaton, he is given one
choice only: to make it work, by his own repetitive action.
Romania.
Consequently, the comfortable bipolar stereotype of the manipulated (us) and
the manipulator (them) – most often placing people’ actions at one end of the
string, as humble and direct consequences of an unexplained exterior force
responsible for them – is replaced by a system of closed choices, built in a
series of automata. The exhibition takes these two directions further, by
positioning the visitor in various relations with its objects of entertainment
and himself, from leaving him the comfort or discomfort of the distant
observer, up to making him a giant ballerina in a micro banquet, a victim of a
Kafka-like commission, or a beggar of wishes.
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