Wargames
Wargames it’s a video installation and documentary project by visual artists Alba Sotorra. Wargames is a reflexion about war in our modern times by inspecting a personal subject, a young mercenary who has been working for the spanish army in Afghanistan.
We took care of setting up the mapping installation in Cal Massó art center in Reus city, Catalonia. She asked us to project video excerpts from his documentary film on the columns of the art center, a way of decoring the inner space with visuals which talk about the concept itself of the exhibition. We used our own WarpMap software to warp and match 12 video projectors to the columns of the venue. The result was an inmersive space where you where surrounded by images from Wargames.
Alba’s description of her project :
“Our culture and way of life couldn’t exist without it. Its victims are necessary for our Art, and military technology is what feeds our scientific advancement. The front has moved a few thousand kilometers further away. Or maybe, the new foxholes are being dug in laws, work, or consumer society.Some people insist that it’s inside of us from the time we’re born, in our tastes, sexual competition, and our own uselessness.
Whether we are really the victims, with our addictions, apathy or well being, or if the ones who are hurt the most are those masses of people we see on TV, is hard to say. Figuring out whether it’s the democratic institutions, corporations, the greed of our competition based system or the human race itself that’s at fault is something far beyond our grasp. What we can be sure of, however, is that we need war. We need the natural resources it provides us, the freedom we gain with it, the weapons, the threats, the epic movies and those hordes of pacifists with their educational slogans.”