new media designs and
visual-spatial arts theories practice
CGI, Simulations & Research
- IDIOGLOSSIA
- MACHINIMA GTA V
- DIGITAL AVATARS
- ALDI SÜD
- PERMACOMPUTING
- THE UNCANY VALLEY
- GENDER&ART IN THE GDR
- AI - GENERATED ANIMATION
INDEX
CONTACT
new media designs and
visual-spatial arts theories practice
CGI, Simulations & Research
INDEX
CONTACT
Watch in 360°🌐
Format: 360’ 3D Animation
Duration: 3 min
I'm all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for a special offer
A guaranteed personality
The Clash, Lost in Supermarket
The visual performance Aldi Süd is a real physical environment, transferred through photogrammetry technique to virtuality, and simulated natural elements and light particles creating a hypnopompic visual of moving through the aisles of the supermarket. I was influenced by Don DeLillo’s book White Noise (1985) and its film adaption by Noah Baumbach which hit on the media, fear and consumerism. I was intrigued by the central role of the supermarket in these texts and their visualization in the film, while strolling past the neatly arranged shelves of my local Aldi, where the senses are serenaded by the colours and textures. “Everything seemed to be in season.” The kind of place Don DeLillo wrote evoked “a sense of replenishment…and fullness of being”.
Grocery stores have long served as powerful metaphors for our lives in contemporary art and literature. From A. Warhol’s critique on consumerism value in his “American Supermarket” installation with ‘authentic’ Campbell’s Soup tins as an object of mass production for $18, mimicking the galleries that became supermarkets, where everything is for sale and where there is little correlation between the cost of production and the market value. DeLillo portrays the function of the supermarket as almost spiritual, serving as a meeting place and community centre. “This place recharges us spiritually, it prepares us, it’s a gateway or a pathway.” “While many houses and buildings in town show signs of decay, … the supermarket did not change, except for the better.” “Everything was fine, would continue to be fine, would eventually get even better as long as the supermarket did not slip.” Supermarkets create the sense of order and systemization, where one can shop to create their identity.
→ Featuring excerpts of postmodern writer Don DeLillo’s White Noise, 1985 writing on supermarkets and the surrealistic happenings
Credits:
Software: Unreal Engine 5
Sound: Bian Bian
Produced with the support of the Unguarded, MEGAWORLD.XYZ, Tropez Tropez
Photo documentation courtesy of Tropez Tropez