explorARTa - The Chairs

Objet trouvé in the City

Through the diversity specific to a conglomerate, the City is the place of daily discoveries. City dynamics provide psychogeographical explorations, the "surprise" elements such as "situations" and objects that amaze by their disharmonious relationship with the surrounding environment. In my vision, an abandoned chair in the street constitutes a visual disruption in the urban landscape by its unnatural appearance in the city space. Through minimal artistic interventions, a common and uninteresting object can be transformed into an object with artistic valences, thus acquiring the status of Objet trouvé.

In my various psychogeographical explorations in Bucharest, Romania, I photographed several chairs of various types, abandoned in the street, damaged and meaningless. The state in which I found them indicates that the abandoned chairs have lost their status as objects useful to people. Thus, in contrast to the ambience of the urban environment, in my eyes, the chairs become characters who express their condition through the way they appear in front of the viewer, describing a dramatic scenic image.

The Chairs project presents a series of Objets trouvés / 6 abandoned chairs, recontextualised and presented as protagonists of their own stories. The project is inspired by the play Les Chaises / The Chairs by the great French writer of Romanian origin, Eugène Ionesco, and presents, like Ionesco's play, a Universe where the meaning of things and the real purpose are missing, and life situations can become sometimes absurd.

Starting from this idea, I used photos with various details and urban scenes taken in Bucharest, to build in the form of digital collages, scenic images that present in a theatrical atmosphere my imaginary vision of these chairs-characters. The images created are displayed in a virtual exhibition space against a sound background with the noise of the city, which connects the chairs with the space in which they were found. I exhibited the created images in a virtual exhibition space with a sound background of the city noise that completes the imagined scenes.

Creating the contexts for these imagined characters, I felt the need to give them names. Thus, each chair received a name that represented them.

Viewing the exhibition, you will meet The Fatalist, The Fighter, The Evil, The Needy, The Invalid and The Guardian.

Visual narratives by Mihaela Motaianu; Additional sound effects from zapsplat.com.

The Fatalist

The Fighter

The Evil

The Needy

The Invalid

The Guardian

The Exhibition was part of the Finale Celebration of the 4th World Congress of Psychogeography, on 4th September 2022.

Before visiting the exhibition, please read the information below.

Accessing the virtual exhibition

The virtual exhibition is hosted by the Hubs by Mozzila platform allowing the entry of 24 people simultaneously. To visit it is necessary to choose a predefined avatar for immersing in the virtual space. The starting point of visiting the exhibition was pre-set in front of the photos with chairs photographed in the urban context. From this point, the visitors can explore the virtual space at will.

The virtual space provides several communication tools for the visitors to the exhibition. The application's microphone can be activated when entering the virtual exhibition, so communication with other visitors is possible by voice. The chat offers the possibility to communicate through written messages and reactions can also be shared through emoticons.