Philippe Vergne, eMPire of sIGns 1998Empire of Signs is a project produced by Walker Art Center Visual Arts Curator Philippe Vergne as a way to document his 1998 five week trip through Japan. Through a combination of sights, sounds, and symbols Vergne attempted to create a digital space that would guide viewers through his experiences in Japan as he was researching many of the artists in the exhibition Let's Entertain. The project is introduced as a "hyperessay".
The structure of site, while a little more chaotic than many travel blogs, mirrors the setup that tourists now have at their disposal in order to document their time in foreign environments. The accessibility and proliferation of video and audio software makes it exceptionally easy and convenient for anyone to recreate the progress of their own travels. While in the past, people might have had to actually leave their house in order to experience new environments, the multiplicity of travel logues makes it exceedingly possible to gain a personal perspective of other places from the screen of the computer.
What intreguies me about Vergne's project is that, while he does include text on certain pages, the majority of the website is navigated through signs and symbols. It may represent a view of Japan, but through the construction of the site Vergne has created his own new personal environment that can only be experienced through the website - no other person would have this exact experience in a real space. He is also mapping his own memory in a fashion by using symbols to represent different experiences and conceptions rather than actual real objects and buildings.
The structure of site, while a little more chaotic than many travel blogs, mirrors the setup that tourists now have at their disposal in order to document their time in foreign environments. The accessibility and proliferation of video and audio software makes it exceptionally easy and convenient for anyone to recreate the progress of their own travels. While in the past, people might have had to actually leave their house in order to experience new environments, the multiplicity of travel logues makes it exceedingly possible to gain a personal perspective of other places from the screen of the computer.
What intreguies me about Vergne's project is that, while he does include text on certain pages, the majority of the website is navigated through signs and symbols. It may represent a view of Japan, but through the construction of the site Vergne has created his own new personal environment that can only be experienced through the website - no other person would have this exact experience in a real space. He is also mapping his own memory in a fashion by using symbols to represent different experiences and conceptions rather than actual real objects and buildings.
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