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Maurice Benayoun, World Skin: A Photo Safari In The Land Of War. Image courtesy of the artist.

World Skin: A Photo Safari in the Land of War (1997)

On entering the darkened space audiences become virtual tourists confronted with a 3D war landscape. The cameras act as interfaces; the act of 'shooting' as part of the scene causes the framed area to disappear from the projected image as if a layer of skin were being torn off the world.

World Skin highlights the effects of technology and media on our perception of the world, alluding to the way mediated images of human horrors appear neutralized and on a similar level. The work also emphasizes the contrast between the materiality of the printed photographs that 'war safari tourists' can take away, and the virtual environment where it originates.

Maurice Benayoun is a media artist whose work explores various media from video to virtual reality, net and wireless art, public space, large-scale art and interactive installations. World Skin was created with composer Jean-Baptiste Barrière.