Rosa Menkman (NL)
Refractions in Light and Time
3D interactive story build within NewArt.City, 2022-2023
Soundtrack by Debit (MX/USA)
In the summer of 2022, Menkman was travelling the Mediterranean to learn about three Cyclopes lineages. Cyclopes are famous mythical creatures, known for their gargantuan physique and single round eye. However, beyond their most famous features, and maybe a name born by a single Cyclops, little about them is known. In fact, Cyclopes seem shrouded in mystery, sparking general questions such as: Where do contemporary Cyclopes live, and how do Cyclopes perceive the world?
In this chapter of an ongoing work in progress, the Angel of History, tells about her search for a certain Cyclops. The Angel of History is known to look backwards. But after a century of its conception (in a painting by Paul Klee) the Angel is tired of seeing the past and looks for new ways to sense, or possibly even see the future. When she learns about the cyclops Odin, who traded an eye to see his future demise, she she sets out on a journey to find and learn from the cyclops’ vision.
Rosa Menkman is a Dutch artist and researcher. Her work focuses on noise artifacts that result from accidents in both analogue and digital media. As a compendium to this research, she published the Glitch Moment/um (INC, 2011), a little book on the exploitation and popularization of glitch artifacts.
Menkman developed and highlighted the politics of resolution setting further in a second book titled Beyond Resolution (i.R.D., 2020). In this book, she describes how the standardization of resolutions is not only a process that promotes efficiency, order and functionality, but also involves compromises and the obfuscation of alternative possibilities.
In 2019 Menkman won the Collide, Arts at CERN Barcelona award, which inspired her recent research into what makes things im/possible. With a special focus on im/possible images. Through this research, Menkman aims to find new ways to understand, use and perceive through the use of, and interaction with, our technologies.
