"Self-Reflexivity as Self-Documentation: Some Thoughts on Augmented Reality and Relational Architecture" Horea Avram

In the present essay I propose to address the issue of new media documentation considering Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s work Relational Architecture 11 – Under Scan (2005-2006). The main focus of my analysis is to see how self-reflexivity of an Augmented Reality artwork is doubled by a strategy of self-documentation. In the first part I will shortly explain where the self-reflexivity of the work in discussion is manifest, and then I will discuss the documentation problems considering four main elements identifiable in any new media artwork: Equipment – Work – Experience – Context. For each of these components, I will see where new media “classical” documentation methods are applicable and where self-documentation functions, taking into account the self-reflexivity attributes of this work: the play between illusion and its subversion, the balance between transparency and opacity of the medium, the representation within the work of its own structure.

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Horea Avram : Ph.D. candidate in Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University, Montreal, Canada; Background in Art History and Cultural Management; Author of numerous critical essays in art magazines, and exhibition catalogues in Europe; Curator for Venice Biennial in 1999 (Romanian Pavilion), independent curator from 1996. Areas of interest: installation art and new digital media; Research subjects: the aesthetics of spaces in installation art and Augmented Reality.