Exhibition Opening: people_scans
(Linz, March 5, 2013) The “people_scans” exhibition at the Ars Electronica Center opens this Thursday, March 7 at 8 PM. Admission to the vernissage is free. The show features full-body scans by Upper Austrian photographer Kurt Hörbst. His imaging technique is an intentional deceleration of high-speed digital photography. The portrait subjects lay flat on the floor while they’re digitally scanned, one pass after another, by a high-definition digital camera that moves along a specially designed rail system. The subjects have to freeze and maintain their pose for one to two minutes. A selection of Kurt Hörbst’s full-body scans will be presented on Thursday evening in Deep Space. The life-sized images will then be on display until the end of April in the Ars Electronica Center’s Lobby.
Reminiscence of the 19th Century
Keeping still, a nearly eternal persistance in a pose with a fixed gaze into some lens. These technical requirements of photography in the 19th Century are past since smartphones are always ready for snapshots and make exposure time factor no longer relevant. Portraits are created in seconds – anytime, anywhere. With the project “people_scans” the Upper Austrian photographer Kurt Hörbst opens a new perspective: With a high resolution digital camera and a specially designed rail system people are scanned systematically under the same lightning conditions as in the 19th Century. Finally 20 individual images get manually assembled by an image editiy program. The model is compelled to lie motionless for one or two minutes during the uptake process – but this time when lying on the floor.
press release “Exhibition Opening: people_scans” / PDF
An interview with Kurt Hörbst and images showing him during the process of scanning can be found on the Ars Electronica Blog.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arselectronica/8527181257/
people_scans / Kurt Hoebst / Printversion / Album
