SITUATION #28

The ways we distribute, consume and experience media have been radically transformed by online networks and file sharing platforms. Entire discographies and filmographies are downloaded, exchanged and copied in minutes across the planet, through peer-to-peer platforms at the hands of any internet user. The Pirate Cinema makes such activity visible, by displaying the most viewed torrent files in real time. The result is a three channel real time video installation that immerses the viewer within the hidden architecture of global information flows. The collage of image fragments – stolen movie frames and runaway video bytes – puts both the instability of the current media industry and the oversaturated media consumption habits of contemporary society on display. Finally, The Pirate Cinema presents us with a new image aesthetic: the shared image. In the process of being downloaded, it is compressed, distorted and filled with digital artefacts; an unfinished frame eternally moving across the planet.

More about The Pirate Cinema project: thepiratecinema.com

More by Nicolas Maigret: peripheriques.free.fr/blog