Terra Incognita
multimedia installation • 2022
The term terra incognita was first seen in Ptolemy's cartography in the period of ancient Egypt, and it was used in world maps to denote all unknown and unexplored areas. Oftentimes, additionally to terra incognita, the suggestive phrase hic svnt dragones would be written (in translation: "here are the dragons").
In the context of today’s times, the modern human consciously chooses to store his identity in an intangible, cybernetic space, without having ownership and control over it. Yet human nature is the direct opposite of the techno-feudal digital world into which it is immersed, it is organic and entirely earthbound. Through the juxtaposition of the organic and the mortal with the digital and the eternal, a peculiar collision of worlds occurs in which, physicality and virtuality, polar opposites, change their roles for the human being. Ironically and paradoxically, the human's original physical form becomes something unknown to it - ie becomes a new terra incognita.
view of the installation at the 36. Youth Salon, Zagreb, Croatia, curated by KUĆĆA collective
photos by Juraj Vuglač
To that extent, the analysis of material reality through the prism of the virtual dimension results in a completely new understanding of the space in which we find ourselves, and suggests the stratification of its interpretation. By studying the flow of energy through space, and abstracting architectural forms into simple linear elements, the author searches for the essence of spatiality. Taking the real space of Meštrović's pavilion in Zagreb as a starting point, she creates new interpretations of it divided into four levels of immateriality. By processing this real building and its close surroundings in this way, the author obtains completely new digital landscapes, directly extracted from the existing architecture. Through the artistic intervention of inserting the obtained 3D spaces into Google Earth, the author encourages the viewer to think more deeply about the space they walk through, its virtual characteristics, and to a potentially higher level of understanding of architecture that goes beyond its very physicality.
QR codes leading to the Google Street View intervention in the gallery space (Meštrović Pavilion)
360° interventions inserted in Google Street View