SOUVENIRS (CORCOVADO)

Gabriel Menotti (Brazil)

THE MCMANUS. PART OF THE GROUP EXHIBITION FUTURE ARTIFACTS
Albert Square
Meadow side
DD1 1DA

A collection of small plastic figurines of Christ the Redeemer, the iconic statue in Rio, Brazil, in the guise of tourist souvenirs. The 3D printed figurines were made from the many electronic traces of the real monument – found videos or promotional footage – processed using 3D scanning software. Because 3D scanning software is usually used for static objects and not moving images, it has resulted in these glitched models, unlike the original.

As the artist says, “The operation mimics the digitization of cultural heritage objects and sites for the purpose of documentation and preservation [as you can see in other projects in NEoN Festival, such as the digital renderings of the Royal Arch at Slessor Gardens]. Yet in this case, the computer algorithms were misled by their own fidelity to the available information.”

About the Artist:

<Gabriel Menotti (Brazil) is an artist as well as a curator, researcher and teacher, working in the Communication Department of UFES (Universidade Federal Espírito Santo), in Vitória, Brasil.

His work is primarily concerned with cinema and new technologies. He has been involved with pirate movie screenings, remix film festivals, videogame championships, installations with super8 film projectors and generative art exhibitions. Menotti holds a PhD in Media and Communications from Goldsmiths College (University of London) and a doctorate in Communications in Semiotics at PUC-SP (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo).

Part of the group exhibition Future Artifacts

With thanks to Leisure & Culture Dundee