FARGO is not FARGO
The world is not what we think it is. Sometimes, it even speaks French!
“People” from everywhere resemble us. The artistic ambition of this project is to contribute to a change in the way the world looks at itself, or more accurately, in the way “people look at people.”
In this day and age of instantaneous communication, the illusion of knowing “what the world is made of,” and “what people are made of,” increases in proportion to the complexity of the tools available to us. However, the tangible nature of a real meeting with others exposes our stereotypes and consistently contradicts our prejudices. When we meet others or “rub our senses” to others, through travels or through artistic processes such as the one I tried to accomplish in this project, we are reminded that, far from ridding us of our preconceptions, new media technologies we take ...
Full Description
FARGO is not FARGO
The world is not what we think it is. Sometimes, it even speaks French!
“People” from everywhere resemble us. The artistic ambition of this project is to contribute to a change in the way the world looks at itself, or more accurately, in the way “people look at people.”
In this day and age of instantaneous communication, the illusion of knowing “what the world is made of,” and “what people are made of,” increases in proportion to the complexity of the tools available to us. However, the tangible nature of a real meeting with others exposes our stereotypes and consistently contradicts our prejudices. When we meet others or “rub our senses” to others, through travels or through artistic processes such as the one I tried to accomplish in this project, we are reminded that, far from ridding us of our preconceptions, new media technologies we take pride in may in fact reinforce them.
Why did I choose Fargo for this project? It is a symbolic place in North Dakota (United States of America), a small town * subject of many prejudgments. Of course, I could have chosen Casablanca, Vichy, Auschwitz, Timbuktu… but destiny decided otherwise. I hereby claim subjectivity, and this choice is arbitrary.
Ever since the Coen Brothers’ well known movie, Fargo, the city has become a symbolic place, loaded with meanings by the myth maker par excellence, cinema. Granted, what I want to say about Fargo is universal. The meaning of the process goes beyond the choice of the place and embodies the very action to be operated on it. The fact that it’s a Frenchman who is casting a glance over an American town very constrained in “imagery” is not neutral, especially when both countries have strong opinions about each other and at a time when their relationships have significantly deteriorated.
Hence, an eye- and mind-opening attempt and a desire to share the continuously renewed wonder as a result of that experience.
Work metadata
- Year Created: 2007
- Submitted to ArtBase: Monday Feb 11th, 2008
- Original Url: http://www.fargoisnotfargo.com
- Permalink: http://www.fargoisnotfargo.com
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Work Credits:
- Bruno Moynie, creator
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