From a distance, photographer Felix R. Cid’s new exhibit, “X,†showing this month at A+E Studios, resembles a pixelated computer screen or what you’d imagine a landfill to look like from the vantage point of space. Up close, the photos seem like aerial shots taken of a mass gathering of people. And that’s the point: The photos are, in fact, large clusters of people captured at various electronic music festivals in 12 different countries — including Portugal, France, Switzerland, and more — who represent what Cid describes as a “physical example of a completely globalized planet.â€
To create “X,†Cid used the detailed photos of individual festival attendees to then arrange a collagelike materialization of a space and time that he says never actually existed in the way he’s now warped it. The result is a mind game intended to “provoke tension between what we’re capable to perceive with our eye and what we think we know.â€
A+E Studios, 160 West Broadway, through March 2.
