Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Over Roswell

Gábor Kerekes - OVER ROSWELL-2 / 2005

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The town of Roswell lies in the state of New Mexico in the United States at latitude 33.4° N and longitude 104.5° W. In 1947 locals found three dead aliens in a crashed UFO on the outskirts of the town. The FBI and the CIA kept silent and hushed up the incident. The murkiness surrounding this mysterious case has been a source of scandal and controversy ever since. Gábor Kerekes came across a computer program called "U.S.A. Photomap". With this program you can download a photo-quality satellite image of anywhere in America by giving the geographical coordinates.

OVER ROSWELL-2 / 4 / PIGMENTED PRINT 15X16 CM
The maximum resolution is 1 metre/pixel, so on a 17 inch monitor with a resolution of 1,024 pixels you can see 1,024 metres. This sparked his imagination. Casting himself in the role of the Roswell aliens, he wondered how this place would look from space.

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"I gave the coordinates. Slowly, square by square, the monitor was filled by the full image. What luck! I overshot the centre of the town, ending up about 600-800 metres away from the inhabited area. A curious, exciting sight greeted my eyes. Lines, circles and squares in a geometrical, abstract arrangement of symbols.

OVER ROSWELL-2 / R 12 / PIGMENTED PRINT 18X12 CM

You couldn't help but think that these geometrical symbols on the surface of the Earth were intended to convey a message or information. The sight offered an exceptionally varied and almost undecodable configuration. If I were an alien, I'd land here! I cut out details of the picture by "screenshoot", added pixels due to the low resolution and printed them. I photographed the print-outs by large film format, and contact printed the negatives on pigmented print. This is how this Roswell collection was made. "

OVER ROSWELL-2 / R 11 / PIGMENTED PRINT 16X12 CM
OVER ROSWELL-2 / R 20 / PIGMENTED PRINT 17.5X cm

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Interesting post, visual, and written. Spent a week, winter time January 1997 in New Mexico.
I talked at length, much length with a man in Taos, he never mention it, but something called "The Taos Hum", a persistant sound in the background, some can hear, some cannot. BTW, the state (of New Mexico) is ecletic,& vibtant in its own right.
I've been busy, and it is my pleasure to vist again.
Take care........