Media installations from the collection of the WRO Biennale ON THE SILVER GLOBE Kunsthal Aarhus 15.05 15.06.2014 J. M. MØRKS GADE 13, AARHUS DANMARK wrocenter.pl kunsthalaarhus.dk
The exhibition On the Silver Globe: Media installations from the international collection of the WRO Biennale is devoted to currencies in contemporary art that cause us to ponder the ways media provide a basis for creativity. Most interfaces of modern devices are constantly converting analog input into digital data, transforming signals into code. The subject of the exhibition is the way signal and code serve as new media for artistic expression the material for use with the technological devices that artists have been experimenting with for the last fifty years. The exhibition is a curatorial tribute to Józef Robakowski, Bruce Nauman, Paul Sharits, Woody Vasulka, Nam June Paik and Zygmunt Rytka artists of immense importance and originality whose seminal works have influenced, both directly and indirectly, the directions taken by contemporary art. The exhibition comprises original works along with contemporary artists such as Paweł Janicki, Sergiy Petlyuk and Justyna Misiuk, and works designed by the WROcenter Group, reflecting the most characteristic forms and features found in the works of artists who laid the fundaments of the language of electronic art.
Table of content web controller through mobile devices Dies Irae - Sergiy Petlyuk and WROcenter Group Vinyl Video Delay - Paweł Janicki Test Five for Józef Robakowski - WROcenter Group Test 1 - Józef Robakowski RGB: Ray Gun Beam Virus for Paul Sharits - WROcenter Group 2 3 4 5 6 MEM [Multiple Energy Mirror] for Józef, Nam June and Witkac - WROcenter Group On Silver Globe for Zygmunt Rytka - WRO Center Group LIVE Taped Video Staircase for Bruce Nauman - WROcenter Group Aleastock - Paweł Janicki Revolving C-Trend Histogram for Woody Vasulka - WROcenter Group Pierogi - Justyna Misiuk Credits 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Sergiy Petlyuk and WROcenter Group Dies Irae, 2013 Dies Irae (interactive video & sound installation, 2013) is a Medieval Catholic apocalyptical sequence. This musical piece was written at the times of common preparation for the end of the world. Waiting for the End was an integral part of everyday life. However, the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century seems to contain no less apocalyptical dates than the Dark Ages. The only difference is that today people can choose whether to believe/be involved in this mass hysteria supported by media or not. There is a video projection of the monastic choir on the wall. As soon as the viewer walks into the active zone that is in front of the video projection, the chorus starts singing Dies Irae. The number of singers depends on the amount of viewers standing before the projection. Moving from one position to another, the viewer activates some of the choristers. In order to hear Dies Irae sung by all choristers and get a strong apocalyptical feeling, viewers should gather a crowd before the projection. 2
Paweł Janicki Vinyl Video Delay, 2012 wrocenter.pl/vinyl This installation allows viewers to manipulate images of themselves by scratching a vinyl record and via commands sent via the internet. The DJlike handling of the record and the internet controls for selecting among three buffer modes for the images allow viewers to process their images from a few seconds earlier. 3
Test Five for Józef Robakowski, 2012 This five-channel video installation alludes to Józef Robakowski s 1971 film Test 1. The original Test 1 was made without the use of a camera Robakowski punched round holes of various sizes in black film tape, and added sound by sratching the sound track. The pioneering media production that resulted deals with the energy of light the basic medium of film projection. It also deals with the phenomenon of perception: the juxtaposition of light and black in the film irritates the viewers optic nerves, causing subjective afterimages, which means the optical signal from the images on the tape loses its objective character when modulated by the dazzling light of the projector. At a 1974 experimental film festival in Knokke-Heist, Belgium, Robakowski heightened the effect of stunning the audience with the energy of light with a performance in which he stood on a ladder in front of the screen while Test 1 was being projected and used a mirror to reflect the beams of light into the audience. 4
Józef Robakowski, Test 1, 1971, 05:00 The intensity of light in a video image is much lower than in a film, even if they are apparently identical. When viewed on a video monitor, as in Test 1, Robakowski s work has a very different effect: It becomes primarily an animation composed of white dots on a black background. Thus it becomes a work about the migration of forms between two different media film and video an issue which is fundamental to contemporary visual culture. Test Five is also a musical composition arising from the random combining of sounds from five channels and the harmonies that emerge from that randomness. The title Test Five also alludes to Dave Brubeck s 1959 jazz piece Take Five. 5
RGB: Ray Gun Beam Virus for Paul Sharits, 2012 wrocenter.pl/rgb American artist Paul Sharits used monochromatic film tapes in many of his works. This installation refers to his Ray Gun Virus, a work from 1966, and also to the method of generating video images by means of threelamp RGB projectors devices used in the late 1970s and 80s, in which each beam represents one of the additive primary colors. It is a generative, interactive and net installation. The interaction takes place when the viewers move in front of the camera, cast shadows obliterating some of the component colors, and making sounds. By standing within the installation space with mobile communication devices, we can use the internet to activate a range of further possibilities for modifying the components of the picture. 6
MEM [Multiple Energy Mirror] for Józef, Nam June and Witkac, 2012 A mirrored cabinet for viewing video works including: Józef Robakowski, Light Checks [1, 2, 3, 4...], 03:00, 1993 from the collections of the WRO Art Center and the Exchange Gallery Nam June Paik, Selfportrait, 1961 and Head, 1982 a film by Wolfgang Ramsbott, from a private collection, Bremen documentation of the WRO Art Center exhibition Driving Media Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz, portraits and self-portraits from the 1930s from the collection of Ewa Franczak and Stefan Okołowicz This unusual installation conveying 20th-century cultural content, trends and motifs associated with multiple portraits. The most famous multiple portraits include Marcel Duchamp s 1917 portrait; Witkacy s portrait created in St. Petersburg in 1915 or 1916; and the 1912 portrait of Wacław Szpakowski, a Wrocław-based artist who influenced local conceptual artists. Multiple portraits have also been a recurring motif in the work of a number of other artists. Józef Robakowski s created his own multiple self-portrait in video in 1998; and the camera plays the role of a mirror in many contemporary artists performances. 7
On Silver Globe for Zygmunt Rytka, 2012 wrocenter.pl/glob This installation uses excerpts from Georges Méliès s 1902 film Le Voyage dans la Lune and Zygmunt Rytka s 1969 photographs. On the Silver Globe is an installation referring to the history of cinema and television, inspired by photographs by Zygmunt Rytka documenting the July 21st 1969 live TV broadcast from the first manned landing on the Moon. Georges Méliès s visionary work Voyage to the Moon was also used in the installation: one of the earliest films of the sci-fi genre and a classic not only in terms of the cinema, but also or perhaps above all in the history of human imagination and aspirations. Méliès s film lies solicitously guarded in archives, but is at the same time widely available on the internet in countless files. One such file, downloaded from the internet, has been used in this installation as a matrix of pixels capable of generating a live 3D picture. The film is a cultural icon downloaded from the internet, but is also modified via the internet by the viewers. 8
LIVE Taped Video Staircase for Bruce Nauman This installation is based on Bruce Nauman s classic 1970 work LIVE Taped Video Corridor. Two side-by-side monitors show the same scene: the staircase leading to the gallery. Viewers soon realize that the two monitors show two different points in time: On one, we see an image of ourselves transmitted in real time; the other shows the same image with a brief delay, causing a sort of perceptual wobble. The installation represents a chapter in the history of media art in which numerous artists came up with startling space/time experiments. Specially for this installation, Paweł Janicki designed and programmed an original digital set-up imitating the functioning of the analog devices used in the 1970s to delay video signal circuits. 9
Paweł Janicki Aleastock, 2013 paweljanicki.jp/aleastock The installation is a convolution of several phenomena and factors: physical bodies, (public) space and architecture; sound and music; capitalism and economics. In a certain way Aleastock is a parasite feeding from the body of capitalism. Aleastock is an interactive, sound-oriented work driven by (captured in real time) companies trading on the stock exchange (NASDAQ). Ca. 2700 companies most important for the global economy was selected as data sources for the installation. Interacting with the installation is possible in two ways. Firstly, by motion tracking system to detect the position and gestures of the audience. Second, mobile devices (such as tablets and smartphones) that can communicate with the installation and allow selecting listed companies and a number of other manipulations. 10
Revolving C-Trend Histogram for Woody Vasulka, 2012 wrocenter.pl/c-trend This work is inspired by Woody Vasulka s classic 1974 video C-Trend, one of the most representative works of analytical video. The picture on the screen is generated by technical signals that are included in camera projections but which are not normally seen while viewing. Instead of the expected normal images from the camera set up next to the screen, we see graph-like forms shaped by technical parameters. Using the internet, viewers can choose the kinds of signals that are displayed on the screen. 11
Justyna Misiuk, Pierogi, 2012 [Dumplings Team, 2011/12, 06:32, No Matter, 2011, 02:05] wrocenter.pl/pierogi This video diptych is presented in an old-fashioned cabinet-style television in which the channels are changed via the internet. A smartphone or other computer device thus acts as a remote control, allowing the user to switch between channels. 12
Credits: artists: Paweł Janicki, Justyna Misiuk, Sergiy Petlyuk, Józef Robakowski, Zygmunt Rytka, WROcenter Group curator: Piotr Krajewski coordinator: Dominika Kluszczyk graphic design: Bartosz Konieczny production: Adam Bagnowski, Paweł Janicki, Bartosz Konieczny, Zbigniew Kupisz translation: Andreo Michaelo Mielczarek, Barbara Kręgiel WRO Art Center on tour: exhibitions, presentations and screenings - information on conditions and available dates - gama@wrocenter.pl Co-funded by the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Copenhagen, the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and by the Wrocław Municipality