Shopping the World is a video installation, which can also be shown as a video independent of the installation. During the exhibition "from ten for one to ART", Bernhard Cella projected a three piece video onto three columns of the Museum of Modern Art, showing loops of an animated poster. Interviews with customers were produced similar to a ?Semotan? advertisement for Palmers, so that it seemed they were sequences of an automated lottery.

The people all wearing Palmer underwear that they had chosen or striped down to their own underwear were asked to pose for Shopping the World in the manner of the mannequins on the posters for Palmers. The only exception: they spoke. And despite all beauty, make-up, digital retouching, professional light and posing, an intimate non-model situation remains while the actors speak of their shopping obsessions.

Cella offers a decoding of advertising systems for the consumer. After the completion of a statement, the picture scrolls up to be replaced by another figure. The questions posed are centered on lifestyle, attitudes and weaknesses, shopping habits and the behavior of the so-called user. The specific aesthetic of the advertisements used on the potential buyer is the surface of a value discussion.(Suess)

Exhibitions

from ten for one to ART, 1997

MAK - Museum für angewandte Kunst, Wien, Austria

Specifications

30min mono color PAL

Technical protocol

DVC, Digital Sony Cam (Recording); Media 100 (Editing, Postproduction); Betacam SP (Master).

3 video projectors, 3 video cassettes, 3 columns.

Post production

Zone, Wien

Sponsorship

Bundeskuratorin für Kunst Lioba Reddeker; Palmers

Edition

Basis Wien

Copyright

Bernhard Cella

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