Archive is a video installation by Fiona Tan made entirely of computer-generated images. The artist constructed a fictional architecture to house the utopian archive of Belgian author and bibliographer Paul Otlet (1868-1944). With the help of the circular floorplan which the artist drew of what she imagined to be Otlet’s ideal repository of all knowledge, Tan digitally erected an entire interior in true-to-scale detail. In this endless projection, she invites the viewer to browse Otlet’s ideal archive, his analogue ‘world archive’, as interpreted by the artist through state-of-the-art digital means. Time folds in upon itself, the utopian future proposed here appears already ruined and forgotten.
Archive is included in ‘Fiona Tan: With the Other Hand’, a mid-career retrospective at
@kunsthalle.krems until 7 March 2021. The exhibition is co-presented with
@museumdermodernesalzburg, also showing works by Tan until 2 May 2021.
Images: (1) Fiona Tan, Archive, 2019 HD black and white looped video installation, 5 minutes 42 seconds. Video still. (2) Installation view: Kunsthalle Krems
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