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Datamosh Dashcam “Paintings” by Jacques Perconte at CutLog Are Amazing


May 10, 2013 | Marina Galperina

Watch the road. Watch the road disintegrate, swallow itself. Watch the street lights mosh the sky into the traffic, like a windshield wiper plowing down everything.

First thought: Leos Carax, Holy Motors. 

Paris galerie charlot set up shop in a minimal corner booth at the inaugural CutLog New York art fair in PS 160. The three Jacques Perconte video works are framed opulantly. They’re “paintings.” They’re better than paintings. To hell with paintings.

This is beautiful. It’s a throwback, in a way — to frame (I’m speculating here) a nod to the digital “dashcam” phenomena and the now memeffied use of “datamosh” in its original art context. Also, it’s incredibly well-made.

I didn’t realize Perconte was one of the pioneers of French internet art — since 1996 – and has been documenting his works, performances and conceptual notes on the Technart site. He was one of the original artist to work with compression codecs.

He also was responsible for that moment of surreal beauty when Leos Carax’s Holy Motors went from strange to stranger in a full-on datamosh sequence, which was the first time this technique has been used in a film as far as I know. (No, the second, after The Villains.)

It doesn’t matter. They’re subtle and mesmerizing and the frames are great way to present them. Shout out to galerie charlot into mounting iPads into one of the best booths I’ve seen this art fair season.

cutlog New York, May 9 – May 13, 107 Suffolk Street, New York NY 10002

(Photos in slideshow: Marina Galperina/ANIMALNewYork)