ELISABETH SMOLARZ

#NOSTALGIA OR OBSOLETE FUTURES (1965)

2017, Two-Channel Slide Projector Installation

 

#nostalgia or Obsolete Futures (1965)” is a two channel slide projector installation playfully celebrating an opto-mechanical device. With each slide an empty Eastman Kodak carousel is being filled on the left, and on the right a full carousel is being emptied echoing the nature of time, endings and beginnings, pasts and futures.

The installation is a good-bye to a romanticized object, with nostalgia of family events, haphazard presentations, and bygone art shows—the endless loading and unloading of the tray.

The carousel images’ backgrounds have been digitally altered to slowly shift through the cyclical geometry of primary and secondary colors, from cyan, blue, magenta, red, to yellow and green, hinting at the already gone future transformation into a digital era. The two projecting slide projectors are prominently placed, allowing it’s continuous forward-clicking sound to fill the space.

 

Selected exhibitions:

Lishui Biennial Photography Festival, China