MAROTTA & RUSSO

 

Under the Domain Name

 

The series of panels shown in this exibition is the result of a consideration about the concepts of “domain name” and website. Those which, at a first sight, appear (on the basis of a conscious and arbitrary purpose of composition) as urban landscapes, reveal themselves for what they really are. That is, an “entrance metaphor” for the representation of a non casual mapping – thematic and referred to a series of contexts - of the ephemeral and mutable structure of the World Wide Web. Indeed, the single home pages, selected following a precise investigation line, and laid bare of their logos, their textual and iconic contents, have then been used like as much base modules employed to build strange buildings and rarefied metropolitan scenarios. This has made perceivable the virtual, but extremely real, metropolis, that exists “under the domain name”. So, for example, one of the panels reveals the “metropolis”, made by the portals of the multinationals involved in the so called “war ofbrowsers”, which saw the final defy of Netscape Navigatorin favour of Microsoft Internet Explorer (Quit, 2003). Another one reveals the “town” of the Italian portals linked to information or publishing trade (Info, 2003); still another one makes well visible the “buildings” originated by the sites and the portals conceptually and functionally linked to the fruition of digital music (Music, 2004).

 

Marotta & Russo

 

Stefano Marotta Was born in La Chaux de Fonds (CH) in 1971; he lives in Udine. His artistic research investigates and verifies the expressive and visual potentialities offered by the new media in the contemporary “Digital Lifestyle”.

Roberto Russo Was born in Udine (I) in 1969, where he lives. His artistic research is addressed to investigate the new psychological, logical and linguistic categories induced by the contemporary “Digital Lifestyle”.

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