Authors: Uwe Brunner, Bettina Kadja Lange & Joan Soler-Adillon.
With: Burkart Schwaighofer (Developer); Juan Carlos Duarte Regino (Sound Composition); Max Happ (Installation Production); Stefan Maier (Web Development); Macario Ortega (Contribution Web Page )
The Smallest of Worlds – A Social Landscape of Collected Privacy is a Virtual Reality non-linear experimental documentary. A 20m experience in which the visitor will view a series of rooms and interact with its elements in order to visualize and hear a multi-voice, multicultural and multilingual discourse that develops throughout the experience.
Each of the rooms of TSOW is made out of a series of visual and sound pieces. These building blocks, each carefully selected and positioned in the virtual space, afford a specific experience bespoke to each of the rooms. There is not necessarily a theme, but a mood and tone that is different for each. Some are more melancholic, positive, ironic, surreal, etc where every building block carries with it a specific story; a documented case on the importance of private space and how this changed during the lockdown phases of the pandemic. Be it a point cloud image or a sound fragment, each one constitutes a unit of meaning in its own right. And at the same time, they create an overall unit of meaning at the node level.
Conceptually, the unfinished nature of the point clouds fits very well with the micronarrative approach at the basis of the storytelling strategy of the installation. The main idea is that the lack of completion – in terms of image or story – is an invitation to fill in the gaps, thus affording an experience that stimulates the imagination of the viewer. Visually this comes across through the undefined nature of many of the figures, the gaps they present and the diffusion of their limits. The parallel narrative device lies on the fragmentation of the testimonies, the disconnected nature from one statement to the next and the lack of a specific context or visual anchor for each.
However, this fragmentation is not presented in a random fashion, but rather through a careful design that includes both the construction of spaces and the narrative side of the piece. This work aims at documenting a collective experience, and thus the approach was to maintain this collective spirit also in the actual content of the work. At the core of this narrative approach is the idea that there is not just one story or character, but a multiplicity of both.
Selected Exhibitions
– Les Ailleurs. Le festival qui explore l’immersion. Official Selection. La Gâité Lyrique, Paris
(France). April 6 to July 18, 2021.
– VRHAM! Virtual Reality & Arts Festival. Official Selection. Hamburg (Germany). June
6 to 12, 2021.
– CPH:DOX, Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, 2021. Official Selection.
INTER:ACTIVE. April 21 to May 21, 2021. Online.
– DOK Leipzig 2020, Festival for Documentary and Animated Film. Official Selection,
DOK:Neuland official, Extended Reality: DOK Neuland. Museum of Fine Arts, Leipzig
(Germany) October 27 to November 1, 2020.
Awards
– Best Content 2021, awarded by Eurofest XR at Sterereopsia 2021, Brussels (Belgium)..
– Special Jury Mention. Les Ailleurs 2021. Paris (France).
– Honorary Mention. DOK Munich 2021. Munich (Germany).
Art residencies
– Pixel:Bytes + Film. Austria. Resident artists. 2021-2022.
– CPH:LAB 2020-21. Project development lab. September 2020 to April 2021.
– VRHAM! Online 2020 Festival. Resident project. Hamburg (Germany), June 5 to 8, 2020.
Links + Press
The Smallest of Worlds: https://thesmallestofworlds.com/
The Smallest of Worlds (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/smallest.worlds/?hl=en
Les Ailleurs – The Smallest of Worlds: https://lesailleurs.art/en/oeuvre/the-smallest-of-worlds-2/
La Gaîté Lyrique – L’espace qui parle: https://gaite-lyrique.net/en/event/lespace-qui-parle
CPH:DOX – The Smallest of Worlds: https://cphdox.dk/lab/2021-smallest/
DOK Leipzig – The Smallest of Worlds: https://www.dok-leipzig.de/en/film/smallest-worlds-social-landscape-collected-privacy/archive
VRHAM – The Smallest of Worlds: https://www.vrham.de/en/the-smallest-of-worlds-2/
Uwe’s page: https://uwebrunner.com/The-Smallest-of-Worlds
ORF: Pixel, Bytes + Film – Artist in Residence
Mosaic: Espais que parlen: The Smallest of Worlds
FishEye Magazine: Éric Chahi remporte le Grand Prix du festival Les Ailleurs !
Exibart: SELPHISH. Arte digitale e società: parla Pau Waelder
Le Point: Réalité virtuelle : on a apprivoisé des méduses
El Correo Gallego: El arte inmersivo, la posibilidad de vivir una transformación
Audiovisual451: Varias producciones españolas participan en festivales de Rotterdam y Dinamarca
Fisheye Magazine, 46. Interview; Uwe Brunner, Bettina Kadja Lange and Joan Soler-Adillon. Pgs. 108-111. May 2021. (https://www.fisheyemagazine.fr/store/en/product/fisheye-magazine-46/)