The Ultimate Technology of Freedom

written by SIlva Kalčić

 

Manipulating the space of reality in Croatian video art

 

In my favorite video commercial, a Citröen 4 turns into a robot and dances to the old hit song Jacques Your Body (Makes Me Sweat) by Stuart Prize, showing corporate marketing to have been inspired by Japanese anime about transformers, robots that can turn into vehicles. Commercial marketing does not show its merchandise any more: if merchandise used to be its own advertisement, now the advertisement has become its own merchandise, according to Virilio. Finally, advertisement as a medium has become its own message. At the same time, the editing of disjunctive, conflicting scenes into a fast-paced succession of screen images (an allegory of modern times), a quick perception of images/signs from the game of marketing strategies, becomes something that appropriates and uses art as its own visual language.