KWADRAT is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Berlin-based French artist Aude Pariset. Through diverse means, Pariset`s current body of work conceptually engages notions of projection and "exoticism", and its relation to "the ability to conceive otherwise" as described by ethnographer and poet Victor Segalen in his Essay on Exoticism. Segalen's notes suggest a definition of selfhood formed in connection to the constantly questionable borders of otherness. The exhibition draws a parallel between this condition of mind and to the experience of "traveling" virtually.

"Conscious experience, too, is an interface, an invisible, perfect internal medium allowing an organism to interact flexibly with itself. It is a control device. It functions by creating an internal user surface -- an "as if" (that is, virtual) reality... More important, it also generates a sense of self... much like the mouse pointer on the virtual desktop of your PC... that advises "you are here".

Thomas Metzinger, The Ego Tunnel

Taken as screen shots from interactive virtual tours on the internet, Untitled (Panaviz fullscreen tour) consists of a digital slide show of hotel rooms and their surrounding idyllic views. The still images displayed all feature exaggerated perspectives. Characteristic of the VR process of mapping a three-dimensional space onto a panoramic two-dimensional surface, these distorted views can be seen to parallel the condition of these locations as a site of the exotic. The viewer, further enclosed within the confines of a 360-degree, virtually defined landscape, is teased into projecting an environment they cannot fully reach -- the destination literally always out of frame.

Sharing the presence of items possibly seen in the hotel rooms in the virtual trip, the objects in the exhibition comprise of cast objects, sculptures, and a painting. The series FX Tridacna features casts of a hard-shell clam using rice paper printed with images of digital paintings by the artist collective PaintFX (www.paintfx.biz). In cascading layers of representation, the clam exterior is used as an interface for the display of digital files: images are materialized on three-dimensional surfaces, and jpegs are articulated through folds, curves and waves.

By its alteration and compass rose-derived motif, Untitled (sand print lino) suggests a nautical sea background. Untitled (zebra presets) is comprised of brushstrokes samples taken from Adobe Photoshop, and assembled to compose a zebra pattern.