VA-T’EN

2022

Interactive installation built around a CRT television and a Kinect V1 used as both a proximity sensor and a webcam.

The screen initially displays potentially compromising footage of transgressive acts, including street artists and graffiti writers shown with their faces uncovered. Because the image is displayed on a cathode-ray television, the footage remains partially unclear from a distance, requiring the viewer to move closer in order to properly read it.

As soon as the viewer approaches the screen, the documentary footage abruptly disappears and is replaced by a live surveillance feed. The image begins to flash the words “VA-T’EN” — French for “go away” — interrupting the act of observation before the identities on screen can be clearly seen.

The installation plays with curiosity, exposure and control, transforming the viewer from observer into observed and using proximity itself as a mechanism of censorship and protection.

Letizia De Bernardi

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