Modern Guru
Modern Guru is a translucent ovoid with four huge digital eyes, floating above a ceremonial ring of LEDs. From his mouth flows a ream of absurdist messages, and in a statement about the true nature of lived experience, a new message is delivered when visitors take a photo of Modern Guru – a missive produced only for those who seek to photograph life rather than live the moment. This immersive new media art installation uses the intersection of art and technology to explore modern paths to happiness through unique interactions with characters along a mystical journey of discovery. Visitors are asked to commit to the path – a tight and winding trail with subtle points of connection along the way – a glowing landscape of oversized, whimsical mountains that chant incantations and blink innocently from digital eyes.
Having communed with the Guru, visitors then weave their way back through this warped and strange world full of illusions and delusions, perceptions and deceptions, all the while bathing in luminescent light; embracing big, gentle forms; and following their own path up the pink tongue staircase to meet the one who oversees the whole fantastic dominion, the Sun God.

Die Wilden Dinger
Das wilde Ding, in Kastanienstreifen modellierte und im Volumen der Galerie schwebende Wurmlöcher sind Teil der Fortsetzung eines Projekts, das am CCA von Kitakuyshu in Japan mit erfahrenen Bambushandwerkern initiiert wurde. Ein anderer Ort, eine andere Technik, eine andere Kultur … Von der Absurdität einer mathematischen Reproduktion mit Naturprodukten, um nicht besser das virale Trium zu spielen, das Faustino lieb ist: Kunst, Handwerk, Architektur.

Down with Wrestlers with Systems and Mental Nonadapters!
file festival

“The work of Dmitry Kawarga normally deals a lot with ideas of biomorphism. A term and a small branch in art history that was very much influenced and formed by Hans Arp. Not just remaining in biomorphism, like Arp, Kawarga adds a whole new social and urban dimension to the works that make us think of terms like ”rhizome” developed by the post-structuralists Deleuze and Guattari. For Dada Moscow, Kawarga invented a totally new work, which seems to be quite different from the abstract biomorph works he normally does. It is an interactive installation that brings up a very powerful sense of the machine and technology fascination the society before the WWI had and it also shows the brutal consequence this fascination had. Kawarga creates a machine that brings the ideas of social models totally to the absurd.” Adrian Notz

Observador do espaço
Esta enorme escultura está localizada no aeroporto Mineta San Jose da Califórnia, onde arte de alta tecnologia dá as boas-vindas aos passageiros. No topo da escada rolante do Terminal B, você encontrará a máquina absurda de Schuelke. Esta escultura gigante de três pernas explora a interatividade entre os humanos e a tecnologia moderna. Ele irá girar silenciosamente com a ajuda de dois braços acionados por hélice. E seu ‘olho‘ revela imagens obtidas de câmeras embutidas.

«Pour moi, la couture est la meilleure source d’excitation de la mode. Notre première collection était un mélange entre mode orientée couture et prêt-à-porter. Avec AV Couture, j’espère créer un véritable atelier de couture, synonyme de savoir-faire traditionnel et de perfection.
Travailler pour mon propre label a toujours été mon plus grand rêve. AV Couture est un instrument pour visualiser nos pensées, et toutes les absurdités de la société que nous pensons essentielles à affronter. ” Vincent Lapp

Cryptic Ruins
It’s the year 21020 and a mysterious archaeological site has been uncovered in what was central London. A large communal structure seemingly dedicated to unproductive expending of energy from human bodies. Whilst we might easily identify it as a gym, our descendants are concerned with why it exists at all. By framing the 21st century compulsion towards physical fitness as a mysterious practice of the past that requires decoding, Deja’s playful film reveals something of the absurdity of contemporary urban life and questions the rationality of our obsessions.

Fountain with Red
Stainless steel, water pump, red liquid, urethane paint. Ujoo+limheeyoung is the husband and wife team of media artists Ujoo and Limheeyoung. Since first working together in 2004 in preparation for design competition, they have been involved in projects that use a variety of means of visual expression – kinect expression sculpture, drawings, real-time interactive videos – to address the theme of absurdity of reality.

EXO-BIOTE
The Exo-biote project aims to invent a typology of possible forms and movements by diverting “soft robotics” technologies. The installation features moving sculpture-objects. These hybrid objects swell with air and seem to be alive, to breathe. These components are part of a whole, they belong to the same body, one whose humours and pulsing organs we can observe. A spasmodic choreography leads the viewer on an inner journey, into the meanders of one of those absurd reasoning processes that logicians calls “apagogies” by proposing hypothetical prostheses for the consumer market. It is as if the objects presented here were commodities, objects ready to use, mass-produced surrogate organs.

ג’רג’ ליגטי
Дьердь Лигети
ジェルジ·リゲティ
Le Grand Macabre
In the mid-70s, Ligeti wrote his only opera, Le Grand Macabre, loosely based on the 1934 play, La Balade du grand macabre, by Michel De Ghelderode. It is a work of absurd theatre that contains many eschatological references.After having seen Mauricio Kagel’s anti-operatic work Staatstheater, Ligeti came to the conclusion that it was not possible to write any more anti-operas.[citation needed] He therefore resolved to write an “anti-anti-opera”, an opera with an ironic recognition of both operatic traditions and anti-operatic criticism of the genre. From its brief overture, a mixture of rhythmic sounds scored for a dozen car horns, to the closing passacaglia in mock classical style, the work evolves as collage of sonorities ranging from a grouping of urban sounds to snippets of manipulated Beethoven, Rossini and Verdi.

2020 Got Me Like
As COVID-19 speeds around the world and continues to shut down more cities, people begin to consume Internet culture in order to escape the apocalyptic anxiety in 2020, allowing Internet memes to go viral across the globe. Built upon social media, this work merges everyday sentiments with classical movie scenes to deconstruct the common imagination of “apocalypse” in entertainment industry. The video also incorporates the artist’s footage during protests, turning memes into public commentary and political satire. In this eventful year, meme does more than hijacking and decontextualizing meanings, it has become a form of silent revolt against the absurd.

“To me couture is the best source of excitement in fashion. Our debut collection was mix between couture orientated fashion and ready-to-wear. With AV Couture, I hope to create a true couture atelier, which stands for traditional craftsmanship and perfection.
Working for my own label was always my biggest dream. AV Couture is an instrument to visualize our thoughts, and all the society’s absurdities we think are essential to tackle.” Vincent Lapp

Vincent Lapp is dedicated to creating mindful fashion, raising polemics, tackling society absurdities, and engaging in essential struggles such as sustainability. His graduate collection was developed as a statement against fanaticism and religious obscurantism following a satirical approach.

Space observer
This huge sculpture is placed in California’s Mineta San Jose airport, where high-tech art welcomes the passengers. At the top of the escalator at the new Terminal B you will find Schuelke’s absurd machine. This giant three-legged sculpture explores the interactivity between humans and modern technology. It will quietly rotate with the aid of two propeller-tripped arms. And its ‘eye’ reveals images picked up from embedded cameras.

Inverso Mundus
The title of the work, Inverso – both an Italian “reverse, the opposite” and the Old Italian “poetry,” and Mundus – the Latin “world,” hints at a reinterpretation of reality, a poetic vision. In our interpretation, the absurdist scenes from the medieval carnival appear as episodes of contemporary life in a multichannel video installation. Characters act out scenes of absurd social utopias and exchange masks, morphing from beggars to rich men, from policemen to thieves. Metrosexual street-cleaners are showering the city with refuse. Female inquisitors torture men on IKEA-style structures. Children and seniors are fighting in a kickboxing match. Inverso Mundus is a world where chimeras are pets and the Apocalypse is entertainment.

Wyne Veen is a Dutch artist working in the photographic medium. Veen’s work consists of sculptural arrangements, utilizing everyday objects and their isolated materials. The work possesses an aesthetic and absurd appeal. Inspired by all things overly developed, Veen is fascinated by our highly manufactured lives, while also endlessly drawn to all steps of the production process. Veen graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in 2008 and maintains a studio in the Red Light district of Amsterdam

ТОНИ МАТЕЛЛИ
Tony Matelli is one of several artists who have become known for reinterpreting the tradition of hyperrealism in American sculpture. During recent years he has moved away from his earlier depictions of humans and animals towards examining signs of human presence. Using an often hyperrealistic idiom, Matelli describes the more disquieting sides of human beings and human society. His sculptures straddle the boundary between uneasiness and humour: in a number of the works he turns innocence into absurdity, such as when animals or humans are maltreated by various weapons and devices. He was born 1971 in Chicago, IL and lives and works in New York, New York.

Ambera Wellmann maîtrise comme aucun autre la capacité à déformer la réalité et à produire de l’ absurdité et du ridicule dans les objets de tous les jours. Les réactions à ses œuvres se situent quelque part entre le dégoût et le rire. De manière habile elle change la perspective des objets dans un nouveau contexte et réussit à jouer avec la perception et les attentes de son public. Ses peintures se concentrent sur des questions importantes telles que la sexualité et la sensation de son corps avec des objets aussi simples que des bananes.

ТОНИ МАТЕЛЛИ
arrangement
Using an often hyperrealistic idiom, Matelli describes the more disquieting sides of human beings and human society. His sculptures straddle the boundary between uneasiness and humour: in a number of the works he turns innocence into absurdity, such as when animals or humans are maltreated by various weapons and devices. He was born 1971 in Chicago, IL and lives and works in New York, New York.

ヤナ・スターバック
Remote Control
Desde fines de los años setenta, la obra de Jana Sterbak (1955), artista nacida en Praga, República Checa (vive en Montreal y París), tiene como motivo el cuerpo, por lo general afectado por la polisemia y la ambigüedad. En algunos trabajos se advierten las reminiscencias de Praga, como algunos mitos medievales, cuentos populares y la literatura de Franz Kafka, Karel Capek y Jaroslav Hasek. Todo su trabajo maduro oscila entre la ironía y la obstrucción, entre el absurdo y la tragedia.

Sisters and artists Lisa and Janelle Iglesias collaborate under the moniker Las Hermanas Iglesias, mining their family history and shared experiences to create multimedia and often performance-based works. Their art considers issues such as cultural heritage, the body, and competition, often with a hint of absurdity folded in.

Void Entity
HART+LËSHKINA is an interdisciplinary image-making duo, composed of Tatiana Lëshkina and Erik Hart. Their work deals with the themes of vulnerability, disengagement, relationship between the individual and its surroundings, and a dislodging of everyday life through simple acts and absurdist theatricality.

White Bouncy Castle
The visitor’s unavoidable inclusion in the idiosyncratic kinetics of Dana Caspersen and William Forsythe’s «White Bouncy Castle» creates a choreographic space where there are no spectators, only participants. The choreography that appears, led by Joel Ryan’s encompassing soundtrack, is the result of complete physical destabilisation and the resulting social absurdity. The inadvertant euphoria that results from the situation is infectious and, in some cases, addictive.

Au Bout Du Souffle
Stéphane Thidet is a French artist who takes regular, everyday objects and transforms them into absurd, fantastical, slightly disorienting installation pieces. Although his work may be slightly off-putting at first, Thidet’s consistently humorous touch lends his installations a sense of accessibility and charm. Thidet is a multimedia contemporary artist, who apart from installations, also works in photography, video and sculpture. Many of his pieces were inspired by toys or games from childhood and play with ideas in popular culture and entertainment.

СУСАННЫ ХЕССЕЛЬБЕРГ
Les photographies de l’artiste suédoise sont rares. Elle produit peu car chaque pièce est une mise en scène éphémère et minutieuse dont la seule trace est le cliché lui même. Elle recrée une réalité ayant l’humain pour sujet, la plupart du temps sans visage et toujours dans des positions incongrues ou absurdes. – «Nature lover II», 2002.

Kramer doesn’t seem to be that interested in the aesthetic tradition of photography so much as creating the right image. His pictures are exciting, even the most simple still life has an energy; the textures, form and playfulness palpable. This is an artist with a style that embraces the absurdity of life and has a humour that is utterly disarming.

МАТИАС ФАЛДБАККЕН
Matias Faldbakken’s work, a combination of iconophilia and iconophobia, is primarily concerned with the various tensions between proposition and cancellation, aggression and retreat, and language and its abstraction into illegibility or absurdity.

Chang and Eng
William Cobbing is an artist living and working in London. Starting from a sculptural sensibility his artwork encompasses a diverse range of media, including video, installation and performance. In the artworks, people are often depicted as being fused with the surrounding architecture, or buried under layers of clay or concrete, from which they absurdly struggle to extricate themselves. The space in which he installs the artwork is where it take shape, often responding to the layout of a gallery or an external context such as the facade of a building, or through replacing manhole covers in the street

Андреас Сломински
Inside Installations
From the start, Slominski sought direct dialogue with the viewer. His so-called “traps” are absurd-looking baits, somewhere between sculpture and functional object. Similarly to Duchamp, he integrates everyday objects into the context of art in order to visualise the process of artistic perception.

ТОНИ МАТЕЛЛИ
Arrangement
Using an often hyperrealistic idiom, Matelli describes the more disquieting sides of human beings and human society. His sculptures straddle the boundary between uneasiness and humour: in a number of the works he turns innocence into absurdity, such as when animals or humans are maltreated by various weapons and devices.

I Fought The Law
In her “I Fought The Law” series, Olivia Locher has come up with a series of images that creatively poke fun at some of the more absurd laws in effect in the United States. Each photo is a tongue-in-cheek rebellion that intentionally violates some absurd U.S. State law, most of which are outdated or bizarrely specific.

Reality Show
The artist is known for the union between the neon and fluorescent and socio-political messages. His minimalist and modern sculptures and installations are guided by sharp social and political criticism, which has its origin in the artist personal history – that was born amid the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, in Santiago, in the 1970s. The dictator used to adopt, among other absurd practices, power cut as a way to impose curfews on people. A light to control the masses is a memory of Iván Navarro childhood and eventually became the major subject of his work.

준야 이시가미
Cuboid Balloon
Quando olhamos para a obra Cuboid Balloon, do artista Junya Ishigami, a primeira coisa que passa pela cabeça é imaginar como uma estrutura pode parecer tão imensamente pesada e, ao mesmo tempo, parecer flutuar? Trata-se de um pensamento absurdo, mas é impossível não refletir sobre esta dualidade. O cubo gigantesco de fato está lá, flutuando, no átrio do Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Tóquio. E o mais incrível é que o balão de alumínio, que pesa uma tonelada, é capaz de pairar no ar por causa de 1.000 m³ de um outro elemento muito simples, o gás hélio.

HART+LËSHKINA is an interdisciplinary image-making duo, composed of Tatiana Lëshkina and Erik Hart. Their work deals with the themes of vulnerability, disengagement, relationship between the individual and its surroundings, and a dislodging of everyday life through simple acts and absurdist theatricality.

Werner Reiterer’s works walk a fine line between sense and nonsense, exploiting art’s close proximity to life as a means of challenging literal descriptions of reality. In a manner that blurs the boundaries of art and humor, his richly engaging sculptures ask us to participate in their realization while his drawings disturb our expectations of the ordinary in imaginings of absurd proportion. And by scrambling the relationship of images and language he is able to turn our perceptions upside down and, in ways that are both entertaining and illuminating, reassert the power of art to change our lives.

The Mask of Pinocchio/Underpants with a hole
Werner Reiterer’s works walk a fine line between sense and nonsense, exploiting art’s close proximity to life as a means of challenging literal descriptions of reality. In a manner that blurs the boundaries of art and humor, his richly engaging sculptures ask us to participate in their realization while his drawings disturb our expectations of the ordinary in imaginings of absurd proportion. And by scrambling the relationship of images and language he is able to turn our perceptions upside down and, in ways that are both entertaining and illuminating, reassert the power of art to change our lives.

Canoe
The work here in Dawson is like an old vehicle in which I’ve put a new engine. Entitled Canoe, it consists of an approximately 20 foot long trough of water, that resembles some kind of boat. This provides a means for a gunwales tracking mechanism to slowly, endlessly paddle its way back and forth. It was first constructed in 2001 in a studio beside Halifax harbour. It draws visual inspiration from the bridges and water vessels of this port. Conceptually, it grew from an interest in technological obsolescence: how things (like canoes) make shifts from utility to leisure.
It has experienced several major rebuilds since 2001. Most of them have been practical, but for Dawson I’ve opted for an experimental configuration that changes significantly the nature of the work. Previously, Canoe has only ever been shown indoors. Normally in runs on rechargeable batteries, with a continuous, smooth motion. In Dawson, it is shown outdoors, alongside the Yukon river, showing up in an absurd way the paleness of its artificial river. Here, the primary source of power is sunlight.
Making use of the long northern day, solar panels receive light, storing energy in an array of super-capacitor cells. At this time, Canoe remains still. A custom circuit monitors the amount of charge, and when a predetermined trigger point is reached, it is dumped into Canoe’s electric motor in a burst, allowing it to make a few strokes. Then Canoe rests, while the charging cycle begins again. Motion is intermittent, entirely dependent on the amount and intensity of sunlight. It ranges from near standstill in overcast conditions to perhaps 1 or 2 strokes every minute in full light. The technical term for this type of circuit is a relaxation oscillator. I like this term because, if you remove it from its technical context, it points back to ideas about leisure and utility.

Reductio ad Absurdum

Les lois absurdes américaines

Schnitzelprinz
via highlike submit

Bildstein | Glatz Schnitzelprinz, 2010 wood, screws 340 x 540 x 255 cm BANALES, ABSURDES, DUMMES, ÜBERSEHENES, UNRELEVANTES, VERBORGENES, FALSCHES UND UNSINNIGES ODER: LASSEN WIR UNS WENDEN! (…) Der Schnitzelprinz (2010), den sie für die Ausstellung “Der Blitz schlägt nie zweimal am selben Ort” ein entwickelt haben, fungiert als Perspektivenwender. Holzfaserplatten und Latten fügen sich zu einer skulpturalen Apparatur zusammen: Zwei halbrund gebogene Platten formen eine Art Rutsche. Wer sich oben hineinstürzt kommt unten gewendet heraus, erlebt die Temporary Gallery neu. Indem er den Rutschtenden um die eigene Achse vom Bauch auf den Rücken oder umgekehrt wendet, erzeugt der Schnitzelprinz einen „Rundumblick“: plötzlich steht die Welt Kopf! Auch wenn die „Rutsche“ offiziell nicht zur Benutzung freigegeben wird, implizieren Bewegung und Form die Möglichkeit des „Wendens“. Dem Schnitzelprinzen liegt die empiristische Überlegung zu Grunde, dass Bedeutung maßgeblich durch sinnliche Wahrnehmung bestimmt ist. Verändert sich ein Sinneseindruck, reguliert er unser Weltkonstrukt – kurz: was wir wahrnehmen erzeugt Ideen. Im Gedankenexperiment werden wir aufgefordert, Grundvoraussetzungen bildnerischen Sehens und Wahrnehmens zu reflektieren. Bisherige Annahmen über unsere Umwelt erweisen sich als falsch, der zufälligen Anatomie des menschlichen Körpers geschuldet. Wir müssen uns davon lösen, zufällig Wahrgenommenes als Wirklichkeit zu begreifen. Die Werke setzen ihre eigene Unabgeschlossenheit voraus. Denn um Fragen aufzuwerfen, ist es nicht nötig, Antworten zu liefern: Wir sollen weiterdenken! Deshalb legen die Künstler Spuren für den Rezipienten, der dem Experiment mit Raum, Körper und Apparatur selbst auf die Schliche kommen soll: Was wäre wenn…? Sie erforschen die Wahrnehmung des Raumes und der umliegenden Kunstwerke, die sich in der Temporary Gallery befinden: Nina K. Doeges pinke Schläuche etwa fallen nicht mehr in einer Kaskade von oben herab, sondern wachsen wie Ranken der Decke entgegen. (…) Andrea Günther, 2010.

The Night is Filled With the Harmonics of Suburban Dreams

The Night is Filled With the Harmonics of Suburban Dreams provides an Indigenous critique of water, energy and sustainability policy discourse. It offers an absurd metaphor that mimics the unbalanced feedback loop generated by markets and consumers locally and globally, where an economy driven by the Judeo Christian Western scientific worldview simultaneously produces scarcities and an industry of “sustainability.”

requiem

Dans REQUIEM, la chorégraphe Nanine Linning imagine la tension entre la vie et la mort, le profane et le sacré, le charnel et le spirituel. Les thèmes, qui sont inextricablement liés entre eux et sont en même temps des opposés absolus. Inspirée du «Requiem» de Fauré, de «La Divina Commedia» de Dante et des images absurdes et surréalistes du duo d’artistes «Les Deux Garçons», Linning est à la recherche de son propre paradis sur terre.REQUIEM est une production multidisciplinaire avec 25 danseurs, orchestre en direct , deux chanteurs solistes, une chorale, un artiste sonore et vidéo. Il s’agit d’un triptyque où le public montera d’abord sur scène à travers des installations de danse; les danseurs créent un monde figé et silencieux. Dans la deuxième partie, le «Requiem» de Fauré est interprété tandis que chanteurs et danseurs suivent la chorégraphie de Linnings dans un monde d’immenses images vidéo sur scène. Dans la dernière partie, un artiste sonore brisera le «Requiem» de Fauré. Le monde gelé de la première partie fondra et l’énergie de la vie sera libérée dans une chorégraphie dynamique pour la chorale et les danseurs.

1.movi
The oeuvre of Eelco Brand belongs to a pictorial tradition in which landscape and genre scenes play a leading role, but goes beyond the traditional forms of this genre. Realistically looking landscapes are combined with abstract components, absurdity and humour are constantly accompanying the artworks of Eelco Brand. The landscapes seem familiar to us, evoking the impression of having seen them before – stereotypes, completely virtually constructed, but of a strong expressive power. But is not any form of visualisation of landscapes constructed, even those we see in our mind’s eye when we imagine a landscape? The artworks of Eelco Brand encourages us to think about our perception of reality.

دومينيك ويلكوكس
多米尼克·威尔科克斯
דומיניק וילקוקס
ドミニク·ウィルコックス
ДОМИНИК УИЛКОКС
Sound Bulbs
Dominic Wilcox hat ein Händchen für das Absurde. Er hat vergoldete Luxus-Sprungsteine, Anti-Diebstahl-Fahrradaufkleber und ein Haftnotiz-Tattoo für handgeschriebene Notizen entworfen. Sein neuestes Design ist jedoch sowohl absurd als auch unglaublich nützlich: ein Konvertierungssystem, das es ermöglicht, alte Soundsysteme in Lampenfassungen zu schrauben. Wilcox nennt sie Sound Bulbs, und sie wurden als Reaktion auf ein Spiel entwickelt, das darauf abzielt, neue Verwendungsmöglichkeiten zu finden alte Gegenstände. Die Herausforderung basierte auf dem uralten Übernachtungsspiel Telefon mit einer leichten Wendung: Anstatt ein Wort weiterzugeben, gaben die Teilnehmer Objekte weiter. Der Empfänger war dann dafür verantwortlich, eine neue Verwendung für das alte Objekt zu erstellen. “Das Objekt, das mir gegeben wurde, war eine Deckenlampe”, erklärt Wilcox in seinem Blog. “Ich begann über Deckenleuchten und die Frage nachzudenken, warum wir nur Glühbirnen in Lampenfassungen stecken.” Ich hätte eine Tischlampe und einen modernen Musikplayer wählen können, entschied mich aber dafür, in die entgegengesetzte Richtung zu gehen. Es gibt nicht viele Möglichkeiten im Leben, 1880 goldene Statuen mit 1980 Ghetto-Blaster zu kombinieren, also habe ich es genommen. Die Zuordnung eines Funktionssatzes zu einem anderen ergab einige interessante Möglichkeiten, um zu untersuchen, wie sich zwei Designtypologien überschneiden: zum Beispiel die on / off String an der Lampe wurde eine Möglichkeit, die Musik einer Boom-Box zu starten und zu stoppen. Wir haben schon früher „Audiobirnen“ gesehen, aber dies ist ein faszinierendes Beispiel dafür, wie ein einfacher DIY-Hack die allgegenwärtige Infrastruktur mit neuen Funktionen nachrüsten kann.

Mécaniques Discursives
This installation project has developed out of the encounter of the engraver Fred Penelle with the video artist Yannick Jacquet (Legoman). It is a mixture of engraving and video projection representing a sort of absurd and poetic machinery unfolding across walls like some exquisite corpse using the principle of a chain reaction as its starting point. Frédéric Penelle has been going to great lengths for a number of years to release engraving from its traditional context and “beautiful paper”. He uses his installations to breathe new life into engraving by moving it off a path that is too well trodden. As regards Yannick Jacquet’s work, this is marked by a desire to step outside of traditional projection formats and put video into space. The main tool is audiovisual performances, installations and stage design. Their shared desire to leave the beaten path of their respective disciplines brought them together in this project.

Vivisector

o what extent does the quality of movement of the virtual world influence real sequences of human movement? Will the real world of the 21st century assume via nanotechnology attributes of the virtual world? Are there still significant differences between a body that is made of synthetic material and warmed artificially and the deep glow of trillions of living cells? VIVISECTOR is an examination of the different speeds of people/nature and technology/information society and of their acceleration; an experiment to overcome the space-time continuum in the real world. It breaks the linearity of movement and in doing so shows the absurdity of momentum. Based on the video-technological concept of the moving body-projection that made D.A.V.E. an international hit, VIVISECTOR now goes one step further: the exclusive concentration on video light and video projection produces a new stage aesthetic in which light, body, video and acoustic space form an unprecedented unity.

Cluster

CLUSTER, la dernière génération d’œuvre audiovisuelle 3D en temps réel de Kurt Hentschläger, se focalise sur le comportement collectif (psychologie, interactions) et plus particulièrement sur le phénomène de foule. La configuration est simple, voire absurde : des personnages humains en 3D apparaissent, comme un banc de poissons. Dans la chorégraphie en apesanteur de CLUSTER, les êtres humains semblent être des particules anonymes, une masse amorphe sous impulsion, un nuage de matière trouble faite de morceaux de corps et de lumière. Visuellement, l’œuvre alterne entre des formes abstraites et réalistes.Par sa nature générative jamais complètement prévisible, CLUSTER, décrit un méta-organisme à caractère irrévocablement anti-individualiste. Alors que les personnages ont une forme humaine, leur comportement ne l’est pas, ce qui empêche la naturelle identification du public à ses alter-egos présumés. Le dispositif informatique permet de définir la nature et le champ de l’action tandis que l’artiste canalise et orchestre les forces en présence.L’œuvre tire son ambiguïté à la fois de ses éléments répétitifs et rythmiques, ainsi que de ses structures « naturelles » improvisées. La majorité des sons de CLUSTER, est produit par les événements qui animent l’œuvre : mouvements et comportements des masses, changements de lumière. Une grille rythmique lie chaque parties entre elles, ce qui donne une impression de pulsion. Les basses fréquences sous les spectateurs et les hautes fréquences les surplombant, encadrent les sons générés par les événements.

Requiem

In REQUIEM choreographer Nanine Linning imagines the tension between life and death, the profane and the sacred, the carnal and the spiritual. Themes, which are inextricably linked together and are at the same time absolute opposites. Inspired by Fauré’s “Requiem”, Dante’s “La Divina Commedia” and the absurd and surreal images of the artist duo “Les Deux Garçons”, Linning is searching for her own paradise on earth.REQUIEM is a multidisciplinary production with 25 dancers, live orchestra, two soloist singers, a choir, a sound artist and video. It is a triptych where the public will first walk on stage through dance installations; the dancers create a frozen, silent world.In the second part Fauré’s “Requiem” is being performed while singers and dancers follow Linnings choreography in a world of immense video images on stage. In the last part a Sound Artist will break apart Fauré’s “Requiem”. The frozen world of part one will melt and the energy of life will be released in a dynamic choreography for the choir and dancers.

feast of trimalchio

Das Fest von Trimalchio: Ankunft des goldenen Bootes

Von dem Satyricon von Petronius, der witzigen und melancholischen Lyrik der Ära von Kaiser Nero, ist nur das Kapitel, das dem Abendessen von Trimalcione gewidmet ist, fast intakt erhalten. Petronius ‘Phantasie machte den Namen Trimalcione zum Symbol für Rezeption und Luxus, für das Laster der Völlerei und Lust trotz der Vergänglichkeit des menschlichen Lebens.
Wir haben versucht, etwas Ähnliches in den Realitäten des dritten Jahrtausends darzustellen. So haben wir Trimalchione, ehemaligen Diener, Freigelassenen, neuen reichen Mann, der in seinem Palast viele Tage lang Feste veranstaltet, anstelle eines Menschen als ein verallgemeinertes Bild eines Luxushotels gesehen, einer Art irdischem Paradies, dem Wohnzimmer, in dem er sich befindet vorausbezahlt.
Die Gäste des Hotels – die “Meister”, Vertreter der “goldenen Milliarde” – versuchen, zu jeder Jahreszeit einen Teil ihrer Zeit dem Aufenthalt im heutigen Trimalcione zu widmen, das sein Palasthotel mit äußerster Exotik und Luxus ausgestattet hat. Die Architektur des Palazzo Hotels ist eine absurde Synthese des tropischen Strandes mit dem Skigebiet.

“Hannes Van Severen makes the connection between reality and imagination in his work. The artist starts with an existing, everyday object, usually a piece of furniture, which he then transforms and changes. In this way, he deprives the object of its original functionality and allows its aesthetic value to prevail. As a result, the original usefulness of the everyday object no longer predominates, but his work nevertheless continues to be a visual reference to the original. With this paradoxical construction, Hannes Van Severen creates a fictitious world of images with alternative, intrinsic meanings and potential. The observer has to let go of the explanatory and allow his or her imagination to take flight. In combination with the personal experience of the observer, a richer dimension of the reality experienced will emerge with the new reading and interpretation of things that are apparently obvious. With this transformation, Van Severen wants to break down our recognition, to question the obviousness of our reality, and to show us the absurdity that surrounds us. Like the cubists and the surrealists, the artist divides into pieces and rearranges  an existing reality, which means that he can be described as a saboteur of the obvious.” Stef Van Bellingen

Pink Placebo

I work digitally, combining images of fabricated and artificial flora and fauna with graphic elements and commercially produced products such as processed food, domestic goods and pharmaceutical products. I look at how these seemingly unrelated and absurd groupings and composites begin to address attitudes and understandings of the contemporary experience. I represent the natural world through completely unnatural elements to speak metaphorically and symbolically of our mental separation from what is “real”, and compare and contrast this with the consumer world we surround ourselves with as a consequence.