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| Esemplasticism: The Truth is a Compromise |
// Exhibition curated by Hicham Khalidi, produced by Den Haag art space TAG.
// SPA (Spandauerstrasse 2, 10178 Berlin)
// Opening: 29/01 > 19:00
// 30/01 – 06/02 > 15–21:00
// 09 – 28/02 > WED–SAT 12–17:00
For CTM.10 Hicham Khalidi, artistic director of the Den Haag art space TAG curated the exhibition 'Esemplasticism: The Truth is a Compromise' for the temporary exhibition space SPA. Focusing on human perception and the strategic interweave of individual senses, the exhibition is both comment on and backdrop to this years festival theme OVERLAP.
Our brains are esemplastic, shaping disconnected elements – incomplete or ambiguous information from our senses – into the seamless whole of our experience. What we see, hear, touch and feel is folded into an amalgam of data, emotions and cultural baggage. But this esemplastic power is pushed to the limit in the sea of information that we are floating in: data-visualizations, scientific studies and computer analysis become increasingly abstract and disconnected from our normal experiences. Are we losing our sense of meaning as we fail to join the billions of dots? How can knowledge and experience be reconciled?
The fallibility of perception is what makes us human. This is the emotional realisation that reverberates through the works in this exhibition as each exposes a disconnect between what we experience and what we think we experience. Each jolt of realisation gives us pause: What can we understand from this?
As mid-century artists grappled with huge advances in technology; op artists mined similar epistemological territory, seeking to explore vision’s connection with knowledge and reality.
Using sound, objects and synchronicity; old and new technologies like field recordings, music, video, and projection, each of these works lifts the curtain on the perceptual tactics that our esemplastic brains employ to negotiate the world; with wit and irony, they have much to say about verisimilitude as each exposes a different fracture between our expectations, our perceptions and our compromises about the objective ‘truth’ that exists ‘out there’.
> tag004.nl
LIST OF WORKS
Daniel Dennis de Wit [NL] – 'The Elevator'
2004, video
A balloon is stuck, jamming an elevator door. The door closes, is blocked by the balloon and opens again. Watching the video jars our expectations, our ‘knowledge’ of the world against a discordant reality in playful, performative terms.
> http://www.dddw.org
Katarina Zdjelar [RS] – 'SHOUM'
2009, video
A young Belgrade man’s misinterpretation of lyrics in the song 'Shout' is a revealing investigation into what happens without the ‘stencil’ of language comprehension, what our ears are pre-tuned to, and the creative misunderstandings that occur.
> http://katarinazdjelar.wordpress.com
Bram Vreven [NL] – 'Rays'
2009, installation
Vreven’s kinetic sculpture fools us into seeing vertical movement when there is none. Eye vs brain in a struggle to make sense of what is ‘really’ happening. The pleasure of being fooled, of having the glitches in our sense of sight exposed, are alluring.
> http://www.bramvreven.com
Anke Eckardt [DE] – '!'
2009, sound sculpture
A loudspeaker plays a siren-like sound that seems to trigger an ‘eruption’ in the water tank. Viewers are tricked into connecting unconnected events, assuming that what they see and hear is cause and effect.
> http://www.ankeeckardt.com
Terence Haggerty [UK] – 'Untitled'
2009, wall drawings
Haggerty uses the “formal vocabulary of Minimal and Op Art.” Smooth 2D compositions employ trompe l'oeil effects to bend and curve walls.
> http://www.ccnoa.org/Haggerty
Pascal Petzinger [NL] – 'H2audiO'
2009, installation
To connect the behaviour of a machine with our own actions requires a psychological jump that needs some conscious effort. Without any explanation of the technology or techniques used here, visitors are left to wonder about the real level of interaction; what effect do their actions have on the work, and, on a meta level, vice-versa.
> http://www.pascalpetzinger.com
Edwin Deen [NL]
2007–2009, misc. mixed media installations
Edwin Deen creates cryptic events that trigger the associative values of the viewer. By putting elements together that supposedly prove cause and effect, he creates subtexts and makes the viewer rethink their preconceptions.
> http://www.edwindeen.nl
Mike Rijnierse, Willem Marijs [NL] – 'Lumokinese'
2008, installation
This simple installation gives a nice notion on additive colour mixing of red, green and blue light. By creating shadows with moving elements, the installation projects an ongoing changing colourplay into the space.
> hhttp://mikerijnierse.nl/video.htmlttp://mikerijnierse.nl/video.html
HC Gilje [NO] – 'Blink'
2009, installation
Space perception and re-composition, Gilje has made different spaces come to life. Exploring how audiovisual technology can be used to transform, create, expand, amplify and interpret physical spaces.
> http://www.nervousvision.com/
Lucinda Dayhew [AU] – 'The disco in my mind'
2009, video
Larger than life projections show fifteen people dancing two at a time to a song of their choice in seemingly random outdoor locations in Berlin. The dancers loom large, dwarfing the viewer, who can only guess what music they are dancing to. Their chosen song is not audible: all that can be heard is the clatter of their footsteps and the sounds of the street.
Alexis O'Hara [CA/QC] – 'SQUEEEEQUE'
2009, audio installation
An immersive environment, the speakers are wired to low-sensitivity microphones hanging from the ceiling.The sounds created will play on feedback between the mics and the speakers. Depending on the user the noise could be harsh or as cozy and calm as an igloo in the high arctic
> http://www.dyslex6.com
Yolande Harris [UK] – 'Scorescapes'
2009, installation
The question is to extend the ideas of navigation landscape and environment to explore musical issues pertaining to expanded consciousness and communications where the score is the central figure. The (musical) score is not just notation but an entity or process where the communications between people through sound and site are catalyzed and channeled.
> http://www.yolandeharris.net
Valentin Heun [DE], Sagarika Sundaram [IN], Gijs Burgmeijer [NL] – 'I AM Display'
2009, installation
The 'I AM Display' project was born as a collaboration between Valentin Heun, Sagarika Sundaram and Gijs Burgmeijer during the Palomar 5 residency towards the end of 2009 in Berlin. The three artists common interest in information technology, art and design is at the core of this project.
> http://www.kh-berlin.de
Supported by Mondriaan Foundation and the Embassy of the Netherlands.
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