The second half of 20th century in a way marks the end of classic painting. Virtual art and interaction with the viewer defines the start of the new century at the broad field of visual art. The project named Transballance (Francis Bacon) is dealing with the five centuries old canon of portrait image, in a way that viewer’s image is transformed and deformed with the help of digital manipulation of the viewer picture on screen. This principle is rooted in the waste opus of portraits made by one of the greatest painters of the second half of 20th century, Francis Bacon. The intention is to connect Bacon’s images of beastiality, violence and deforming with pure digital image of the human at the beginning of the 21st century. The final result of this interaction between digital machine and the person-viewer is printed copy of his deformed image. Modern society based on mass production and replicating of everything and everyone is no longer able to accept the visual art (painting) as a work of individual mind and hands. Project Transballance opens the new possibilities how to redefined the classic art with the help of new technologies. It also shows that contemporary individuality leaned on five hundred years of tradition can find the way forward, with the roots deeply connected with past.
From Velázquez through Bacon to contemporary art.
Concept and design: Maša Jazbec
Programming: Matic Plevčak
Video document: https://vimeo.com/89440839
