Trilogies

Exhibition documentation

willfoster — Thu, 26 Feb 2015 01:54:39 +0000

Erik Bünger

Dan Miller — Sun, 28 Dec 2014 04:35:49 +0000

Written on Tablets of Flesh (2007-2013) is trilogy of speculative essays, presented both as videos and as lecture performances. These works revolve around the human voice and its contradictory relationship to the body, to language, to music and to technology. This exhibition presents three video works: The Girl Who Never Was (2013), The Third Man (2010), and A Lecture on Schizophonia (2007-2011) accompanying the projected video works in the gallery are a number of physical artefacts which are discussed in detail throughout the trilogy. In accompaniment to the exhibition Soda_Jerk will perform the lecture performance The Girl Who Never Was on the 24th of January in The Substation performance hall. - A Lecture On Schizophonia (2007-2011) Single channel HD digital video Dur: 34 mins colour, sound, 16:9 A Lecture on Schizophonia (2007-2011) uses the term schizophonia (=that which makes dogs bark at speakers, children look for the man behind the box and savages demand their captured souls returned), to investigate the split that appears when sound is separated from its source. The invention of the telephone and the phonograph at end of the nineteenth century marks a rupture in our experience of the human voice, which simultaneously fulfills a promise given by prophets and shamans since ancient times. Suddenly a voice can issue from out of nowhere, from the wrong mouth or from beyond the grave. Listening to our own voice, we experience ourselves as others. - The Third Man (2010) Single channel HD digital video Dur: 50 mins colour, sound, 16:9 The Third Man (2010) investigates the darker side of song; music as a parasite infecting humanity at some point in prehistory and propagating itself since then by jumping from body to body. Certain archaeologists believe that language developed from primeval men singing to each other. Song then becomes the first technology; the first time an alien structure infiltrates and takes control of the human brain. Song is also the first technology that each individual encounters in life.The mother’s singing voice works its way into the womb before any other conditioning of the child can take place. The Third Man is a coproduction with the Impakt Foundation, Utrecht in the framework of Impakt Works 2010 and has been made possible with the support of the City of Utrecht; the Mondrian Foundation. - The Girl Who Never Was (2013) Single channel HD digital video and live lecture performance Dur: 60 mins colour, sound, 16:9 The Girl Who Never Was (2013) takes its starting point in the true story of an American researcher, who in 2008 rediscovers the lost traces of the first recorded voice ever: the one-hundred-and- forty-eight-years-old voice of a little girl singing the French lullaby Au Clair de la Lune. One year later another researcher experiments with the playback speed and manages to prove that what the fragment actually contains is the voice of a man. This exact same lullaby is the song sung by the artificial intelligence HAL in the French version of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. As HAL dies his voice also performs precisely the same glissando as the voice of the non-existent girl: a high-strung, insistent voice is gradually slowed down into a deep, sleepy and harmless one. The work uses these two voices as coordinates, and explores how a particular insistency, pertaining to the voice alone, makes it the vehicle for certain kinds of inexistences, as they make their way into our world. The more we try to shut them out, the more persistent their song becomes. The Girl Who Never Was is a coproduction with the Impakt Foundation, Utrecht in the framework of Impakt Works 2013 and has been made possible with the support of the City of Utrecht; the Mondrian Foundation. -

Erik Bünger is a Swedish artist, composer and writer living in Berlin. His work revolves around the human voice and its contradictory relationship to the body, to language, to music and to technology. The voice is not addressed as a phenomenon, which gives rise to personal, human presence and interpersonal communication but rather as the very thing that allows something other, radically inhuman, to enter and take control of the human body. Bünger has exhibited and performed internationally, recent exhibitions include: voice Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle – Warsaw, Poland 2014-15, traucum Parc Saint Leger – Nevers, France 2014, written on tablets of flesh Marabouparken, written on tablets of Flesh Argos Centre for Art & Media – Brussels, Belgium 2014, erik bünger GL Holtegaard – Holte, Denmark, conferencia performativa MUSAC – León, Spain 2014 www.erikbunger.com



In Conversation and Screening
willfoster — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 05:22:07 +0000
IN CONVERSATION
 Willoh S. Weiland and Doctor Christopher Fluke

Artistic Director of Aphids Willoh S. Weiland will reflect upon her trilogy of epic projects investigating the relationship between art and outer space in conversation with Doctor Christopher Fluke.

The artist will present material from FOREVER NOW, a golden record for the 21st Century, compiled and designed by a cross-disciplinary team of artists and curators; VOID LOVE, an online soap opera about space developed through a residency with Swinburne University’s Department of AstroPhysics and Supercomputing; and  YELLING AT STARS, Australia's first inter-stellar message transmitted deep into outer space.
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SCREENING
Natural Selections - OtherFilm
OtherFilm presents two 16mm Films from the National Film and Sound Archive’s Non-Theatrical Loans Collection which feature as case studies in the Natural Selections resource room.
Green Canopy, Paul Winkler, 1994, 24mins, 16mm film
Experiments, Dirk de Bruyn, 1982, length variable, 16mm film
These 16mm film prints are material; they have materialised. They are real; they have been realised. They have scars; they are vulnerable; but they also have so many stories to tell, meanings to uncover.
OtherFilm, 2015
Eventually all films will fade so badly that there’ll be nothing at all left. In 100 years there’ll be barely any film images left. These objects that we worked so hard to realise have something like a cancer that slowly deteriorates inside itself, there’s nothing you can do about it.  OtherFilm: When the print contains no more images, what is its value?
Paul Winkler, 2015
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FREE
Limited places
BOOK TICKETS
Start time 6pm (Approximate running time: 120 minutes with a 15 minute interval between events)


Two Lecture Performances
Dan Miller — Sat, 27 Dec 2014 04:12:17 +0000
THE GIRL WHO NEVER WAS (by Erik Bünger)
meets
THE CAROUSEL (by Soda_Jerk)
Erik Bünger and Soda_Jerk will each present a lecture performance that corresponds with their works exhibited in the gallery. The artists' internationally-renowned 60-minute lecture performances form contemporary iterations of a medium that has become popular since the 1960s, sitting between performance art and pedagogy.
Erik Bünger’s THE GIRL WHO NEVER WAS (2013) is the final in a trilogy of works that takes us on a winding trip through history - a history where a voice echoes forwards and backwards through time, retroactively changing history and changing the present from the vantage point of the past.
The Carousel (2011) by Soda_Jerk traces an alternative history of film as a burial crypt where we collectively commune with the dead. A live narration navigates through an eclectic matrix of film samples producing a multi-channel video essay where it makes perfect sense to conjoin media theory, mysticism, deconstruction, kung-fu, vintage sci-fi, zombie flicks and techno horror.
Time 7:30pm (Approximate running time: 120 minutes with a 20 minute interval between performances)

This performance will be Auslan interpreted for our deaf and hard of hearing patrons.
All tickets $15
 

 

 

 


Guided Tour
Dan Miller — Thu, 25 Dec 2014 07:21:23 +0000
Saturday 7 February 3pm-4pm
Curator Will Foster will host a guided tour of the exhibition TRILOGIES, featuring video works and installations by Erik Bünger, Soda_Jerk, Willoh S. Weiland (APHIDS) and a resource room by OtherFilm. Join us in this introduction to a fascinating facet of contemporary art where you can meet the Curator of the exhibition and discuss each unique trilogy of artworks.
FULLY BOOKED
 

 


OtherFilm
Dan Miller — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:11:04 +0000
Natural Selections, 2015 
Installation, dimensions variable
Natural Selections: a resource room is a response by OtherFilm to the TRILOGIES exhibition. OtherFilm engages the National Film and Sound Archive and its collections via an exploration of a set of 16mm film prints posed as "case studies". The project seeks to draw each film print's identity out of the larger collection through the print's official records in combination with the lived knowledge and human memories of the various managers, film study officers, acquistioners, historians and teachers who have been temporary custodians of the print throughout its life.
OtherFilm will explore the creation, processing, journey, and eventual fate of each film in their selection asking: Who made the film and when? Who processed it and struck the print for them? Who acquisitioned it or acquired it for which institution and when? Who cared for it for most of its life? How did it end up here? The stories they retrieve will necessarily be incomplete, and their narration of it limited and partial.
 


OtherFilm is an artists’ collective that, since 2004, has explored the creative possibilities of experimental film, video, music and live performance by curating numerous festivals, international screening programs, and exhibitions. OtherFilm is driven by a central curiosity about the limits of the moving image, and its capacity to reorganise human perception.


OtherFilm is co-directed by Sally Golding in London, Joel Stern in Melbourne and Danni Zuvela in Burleigh Heads.


www.otherfilm.org
















Willoh S Weiland (APHIDS)
Dan Miller — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:01:31 +0000
Space Trilogy (2008-2015)
a trilogy of interdisciplinary works executed as large-scale public performances, extra-planetary transmissions and online artworks. SPACE TRILOGY investigates the relationship between art and outer space. For TRILOGIES Weiland presents elements of the three projects in the form of live recordings, video works and remnants from performances.

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Yelling at Stars (2008)
audio and mixed media installation
dimensions variable
Yelling at Stars was Australia’s first inter-stellar message to be transmitted deep into outer space on the closing nights of the 2008 Next Wave Festival at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.  The transmission was a 40-minute sound, audiovisual and performance work prefaced with an introduction by SBS Television’s World News Australia presenter Anton Enus. The live performance was recorded and streamed live to Deep Space Communications Network in Florida, USA, where it was converted into radio waves and transmitted approximately 4 light years into space.  The performance was supported by a major web-based component, in which the Yelling at Stars team lead viewers through the many philosophical and scientific issues involved in interstellar communications.

Created by Willoh S.Weiland with Nicky Forster, Pip Norman, Andrew Fraser and Josh Gardiner. 

Yelling at Stars was created with the support of the Next Wave Festival, the JUMP mentorship program, the City of Melbourne through its Arts and Culture Branch and SBS World News Australia.
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Void Love (2011)
4 channel digital video installation
Void Love, an online soap opera about space, has been developed through a residency with Swinburne University’s Department of AstroPhysics and Supercomputing – a leading institute in the discovery of new galaxies in our universe and next generation astronomy. Void Love features interviews with leading astronomy scientists such as Dr Christopher Fluke, the deep voice of Kamahl as narrator, and the inimitable Bollywood classics scoring the weighty issues at the heart of the cosmos. Willoh’s residency at Swinburne was supported by ANAT (Australian Network for Art and Technology) Synapse initiative. Original concept by Willoh S.Weiland & Nicky Forster with Andy Lane, Doctor Christopher Fluke, Christie Stott, Matthew Gingold & Robert Douglas Sola.
Void Love is presented by The Australian Network for Art and Technology and Swinburne University in association with the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.
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Forever Now (2015)
Single channel digital video and Forever Now Golden Record prototype
Forever Now is a golden record for the 21st Century, compiled and designed by a cross-disciplinary team of artists and curators. Forever Now unleashed a one-year open call for submissions that concluded with the commission of original sound and audiovisual artworks. In the footsteps of the Voyager Golden Records, sent into space in 1977 by NASA as a record of culture and science at that time, Forever Now seeks to investigate our current historical moment. It re-imagines this curatorial act as experimental, politically charged and for the first time places artists at the democratic centre of speaking on humanity’s behalf. Forever Now is an Aphids project in association with MONA FOMA Festival 2015 Performance Space, Vitalstatistix. Conceived and directed by Willoh S.Weiland. Curated by Willoh S. Weiland, Brian Ritchie, Thea Baumann & Jeff Khan.
Forever Now has been supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, by the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria and with the support of the City of Melbourne through its Arts and Culture Triennial Program.
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Willoh S. Weiland is an artist, writer, curator and the Artistic Director of Aphids. Driven by a passionate belief in the social role of art, Willoh collaborates with science, space and audiences, as she journeys into the inter-galactic unknown.

Aphids create epic contemporary art projects using performance, music, site-specificity and new technologies.

www.aphids.net
















Soda_Jerk
Dan Miller — Wed, 24 Dec 2014 20:00:50 +0000
DARK MATTER (2005-2012) is an ongoing series of video works that are informed by research into the intersection of cinema and cultural theories of hauntology. Begun in 2005, each work in this cycle takes the form of a séance fiction, where encounters are staged between the past and future selves of a deceased screen star. Dark Matter includes the video installations The Phoenix Portal (2005), After the Rainbow (2009) and The Time that Remains (2012).
 In accompaniment to the exhibition Soda_Jerk will perform  the video lecture performance The Carousel on the 24th of January in The Substation performance hall.
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THE PHOENIX PORTAL (2005)
Single channel video installation
Dur: 4.56 mins
Colour, sound, 16:9
A young River Phoenix from the film Explorers (1985) opens a wormhole to contact his older self in My Own Private Idaho  (1991). Irrevocably haunted by the death of Phoenix in 1993, this work summons the paranormal power of recorded media to reanimate the dead.
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AFTER THE RAINBOW (2009)
2-channel video installation
 Dur: 5.42 mins
 Colour, sound, 4:3
Through a re-imagining of the initial sequence of The Wizard of Oz (1939), the fantasy world of cinema and the reality of Judy Garland’s sad life collide. Instead of taking Dorothy to Oz, the twister transports a young, hopeful Garland into the future where she encounters her disillusioned adult self.
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THE TIME THAT REMAINS (2012)
2-channel video installation
Dur: 11.56 mins
Black & white, sound, 4:3
Joan Crawford and Bette Davis perpetually wake to find themselves haunted by their own apparitions and terrorised by markers of time. Isolated in their own screen space, each woman must struggle to reclaim time from the gendered discourses of ageing that conflates older women with a sense of expiration and invisibility.
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Soda_Jerk is a two-person art collective that works with sampled material to construct rogue histories and counter-mythologies. Taking the form of video installations and live video essays, their archival image practice is situated at the interzone of experimental film, documentary and speculative fiction. Formed in Sydney in 2002, Soda_Jerk are currently based in New York.

Soda_Jerk have exhibited and performed internationally. Upcoming exhibitions in 2015 include: Tongue Stories, Pioneer Works (New York), Festival of (In)appropriation, Egyptian Theater (Los Angeles). They will also undertake a 2-month European Media Arts Network residency at FACT (Liverpool), and a 5-month studio residency on Governors Island (New York) awarded by the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.

www.sodajerk.com.au

















Space Trilogy
Dan Miller — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 08:28:55 +0000



Dark Matter
Dan Miller — Mon, 15 Dec 2014 08:27:47 +0000