STAY IN PLACE
STAY IN PLACE is a connection moment between two friends through Chat by Internet. In this sense, a teleshared space arises between them when both maintain a telematic talk by this channel.
This scene is captured by Sara Malinarich, with the intention to trap this spontaneous action in which both achieve to articulate a narration in the context of an unique and unrepeatable situation.
The woman on the upper window is Maren Pimstein, located in Santiago of Chile at 14:32 hrs. of June 12 of the 2006; the another one is Sara Malinarich, located in Cuenca, Spain at 19:32hrs of that same day.
Few years ago, both women were girlfriends in the University of Chile. Usually, Maren and Sara used make-up every time before going out. The day in which this action occurs, Sara had to leave again. For this reason she took her make-ups again and she begans to be makeup herself, using the screen of the computer as a mirror and, as well as, an intangible backup for her friend... that, from the another side, feel that it results very similar for her. Finally, both knows that this is a renewal among them of their old complicities.
This work speaks us, not only of a concrete theme of human relationships, also of the simultaneous and multicultural settings produced by the connection by webcam across the distance... the connection as a umbilical cord. In the same way, meeting places and people on a digital backup. This technological backup admits new elements of composition, implying new narrative possibilities, but also present us anxieties such as where the action occurs? How many actions have been produced on a simultaneous way? Why these friends have been motivated by their digital clones?
STAY IN PLACE is a proposal directed to the experimentation into the cyberculture land, oriented to the collaborative creation to distance through Internet. This artwork arises after the development of other projects proposed and directed by the author of this piece, related to the scenic arts and the new technologies, such as, "ORBITA. Festival for the teleshared actions by webcam" (2004-2005) and "INTACT. Interface for the teleshared action" (2005-2006).
The reflections considered in the implementation of ITCT at the service of the scenic arts, are basically the digitalization of the body and the transmission of data in real time, as well as the fusion of the scenes into one space of digital nature. STAY IN PLACE connects elements that are inherent to the action and the new technologies, such as: Light, connection, velocity, body, sound, communication, virtuality and digital code, de-materialization and data transformation.