In ReadMe2010 asked my friends to describe my Past-Present-Future using a spread of three Tarot cards. with no experience in Tarot reading they intuitively came up with some interesting conclusions. But do they talk about me - Or about themselves?
"In the Tarot: Six Openings of Three Cards project, Toyster stimulates the viewer by common materials: each tarot card serves as part of a narrative continuum known as "spreads," followed by an interpretation of that card that is influenced by the viewer’s state of mind, their emotions and thoughts at the moment encounter with the card, and thus, it is subject to change. Toyster fragments the conventional sequence of a beginning, middle and end by presenting the viewers with a series of spreads composed of animated cards, allowing them to create their own stories, or alternatively, relate to the story of the artist, hopefully allowing the two stories to merge".
Ronit Milano, Curator
Dancer: Sebastian Gehrke
Recent Work > Art > Tarot > Tarot: Interactive installation
“Tarot” is a story made of three layers. The first layer based on my personal reflection: A story of a child who wanted to be a dancer, but had to follow the rules of the land he lives on: Learn to be a man, and prepare for the inevitable war.
It is too easy to loose any self-identity among those who live on their swords.
The first layer creates a time-based shell to the work. The users will always see particles of the story, but it is up to them to choose what to see next.
Regardless of the user choices, the story will continue – whether the user sees it or not, and after 17 minutes the story ends and so is the work.
The second layer is a database of 22 tarot cards that their illustrated protagonist was erased and replaced by a real dancer (Sebastian Gehrke- a graduate student from Juilliard) .
In the third layer 56 cards are divided by four performing people, each addressing the child/me/you with advice according to the card they represent at the time.
The Interface of the installation is a round black table, a black box and a deck of cards (about three times bigger than a regular playing card). All the cards look the same: white on both sides with a black frame. The user has the instruction to take the cards out of the black box, shuffle the deck and place 3 cards on the table. Using Video Tracking, the position of the cards can be determined: Location and angle, and thus a short movie will be projected on each of the three cards.
When the sequence of the three movies finished, the user collect the three cards
re-shuffle the deck and place three cards, for a new sequence of movies.
In “Tarot”, I am trying to tell a multiply narrations based upon one database.
The user may think it’s all - random – but my control over the work let him/her believe so.
The user may think, on the other end, s/he controls what s/he sees, and that’s not quite true – I decide when is the right time to reveal my secrets.
