It will also be interesting to check out this years Ethnographic Terminalia exhibition running parallel to the AAA-meeting in Montreal. The theme this year is: Field, Studio, Lab.

Next week a large film team from India will come to Blekingegården to use it as location for a Bollywood horror movie. ”1920 – The Evil Return” . I’m very happy to see that the artificial pasts of this location is now taken to further heights.

Article about the film in Sydsvenskan (in Swedish).

About the installation Artificial Past.

Elsewhereness:Yokohama will be screened in Düsseldorf, Germany. Yokohama was the first  city to be evoked in the Elsewhereness series by me and Anders Weberg. The Yokohama piece as well as the others in the series can be watched at http://www.elsewhereness.com

About the screening:

Directors Lounge presents experimental films all around Japan

   We will participate in this year´s 日本デ , the 10th Japan-Day in Duesseldorf, celebrating the 150 anniversary of Japanese-German diplomatic relations.

DL: Short Cuts to Japan, screened on october, 15 at the Black Box cinema will be dedicated to Japan in experimental cinema and video art. Films included will cover a wide range of “Japans”, from fictional to historical to personal…

films by Ciro Altabás, Marina Chernikova, André Werner, YukihiroTaguchi,   Jean Gabriel Périot, Matthew Dotson & Bart Woodstrop, Anders Weberg & Robert Willim, GUP-py, Kazuhiko Kobayashi, Akinori Okada & Masataka Ohta (pictured: Ansoku No Basyo, 2010)

curated by Julia Murakami

many thanks to Sascha Lueck and whiteconcepts for their support!

Black Box Kino im Filmmuseum ‎, Schulstr. 4, 40213 Duesseldorf

October 15, 2011, 8 pm (admission free!)

From the Statement:
The World is Not Enough is a joint work between artists Jussi Valtakari and Robert Willim, based on a sculpted  wooden micro gallery by Valtakari and the video artwork Close to Nature by Willim. By screening Close to Nature in the space of the micro gallery the work raise questions about representation, scale and mediation.

Close to Nature focus on the ways that ideas about Nature are evoked and engendered through uses of technology. The video work is based on nine 30 sec. clips in an iterative sequence. The first clip of a woody landscape was recorded outside of Taivalkoski, Finland using an Intenso Viddy, a cheap Video Messenger. The clip was transferred from the Viddy to a laptop. When played on the laptop the screen was filmed with the Viddy, creating the second clip and another iteration of the primary filmed sequence. The process was repeated until there were 9 clips representing the landscape. Each of the nine iterations brings the viewer closer to the scenery, while the image and sound also become more distorted and noisy. By using a cheap consumer electronic device, and no video editing of the clips, serendipitous ready-made dimensions and glitch-aesthetics are high-lighted. Close to Nature stress an appreciation of imperfection, chance, and the role of media for experiences of nature.

A major theme of Close to Nature, the video part  of The World is Not Enough, is the interplay between proximity and distance, a theme that is further highlighted in the context of the micro gallery. By mixing the video work with the sculpted space and the characters inhabiting the micro gallery a further iteration in the representational loop is engendered What is the role of a gallery and who is watching what?

Kapitel 2. Den (o)synliga handen

Tisdag 27 september kl. 18-21

Vi sägs idag leva i det postindustriella samhället, ett samhälle där fokus ligger på upplevelser, konsumtion, trivsel och rekreation. Men hur postindustriellt är egentligen vårt samhälle? Förutsätter i själva verket det postindustriella tillståndet en ökad grad av industrialisering? Handlar det inte bara om att industrin har förflyttats någon annanstans eller osynliggjorts för våra ögon?

I Slakthusområdet befinner vi oss fortfarande i en konkret produktionsplats som står i kontrast till den abstrakta idén om det postindustriella samhället. Ännu idag är Slakthusområdet en industri och en produktionsplats som distribuerar 70 % av Stockholms samlade köttkonsumtion. För tillfället samexisterar här industrin och planerna för ett framtida, ”postindustriellt” område. Ett område för rekreation och upplevelser i världsklass. Vi intresserar oss för detta spänningsfält och processerna som styr utvecklingen av postindustriella miljöer, processer av sortering, estetisering, historisering och iscensättande.

En av våra mest inflytelserika ekonomiska teoretiker genom tiderna är Adam Smith, ofta kallad liberalismens fader. År 1776 lanserade han i boken Nationernas Välstånd begreppet Den osynliga handen. Begreppet har kommit att tjäna som en viktig marknadsekonomisk princip och går ut på att en individ som handlar till nytta för sig själv också indirekt handlar till nytta för samhället eller kollektivet. Denna tro på att marknaden utan statlig inblandning ger den bästa samhälliga utvecklingen, är en central del i de nyliberala tankemönster som genomsyrar vårt samhälle idag.

Är utvecklingen av Slakthusområdet någonting som Den osynliga handen genererar, eller är det en medveten process som drivs av högst synliga aktörer? Vi vill placera Slakthusområdet i ett större sammanhang och synliggöra de postindustriella processerna som verkar i detta nu på plats i Slakthusområdet. Den osynliga handen ska göras synlig.

Program:

18.00 Samling vid Slakthusområdets entré i korsningen Hallvägen/Palmfeltsvägen

Guidad tur genom området av Peter Ögren, ordförande i Föreningen Slakthusområdets Företagare.

19.00 Industrial Cool, föreläsning av Robert Willim

Robert Willim är forskare i etnologi vid Lunds Universitet och konstnär, med ett intresse för kopplingar mellan kulturanalys och konst. Han har under ett antal år studerat postindustriella miljöer och undersökt hur industrin estetiseras i samband med föreställningar om det postindustriella samhället. År 2008 utgav han boken Industrial Cool – Om postindustriella fabriker som även omfattar bilder och musik på webbplatsen http://www.industrialcool.net/.

* The Humping Pact (Dmitry Paranyushkin och Diego Agullo)

Screening av performance i kolkraftverk i Zollverein, Ruhr: ”The Humping Pact is the suspended act of love towards the environment.”

* Matmapping (Eva Arnqvist och Adriana Seserin)

Eva och Adriana är två av initiativtagarna till projektet Ett Rum Med Utsikt. För kvällen har de gemensamt utfört en matmapping, en genomlysning av vad som produceras i Slakthusområdet. Mappingen fungerar också som kvällens rumsliga gestaltning och måltid.

I Ett rum med utsikt utforskas en rad frågeställningar rörande platsens ideologi, politik och praktik. Genom en serie publika händelser med inbjudna gäster lägger vi kapitel till kapitel i en berättelse om en plats i förändring. Om en industrimiljös uppgång och fall, om kultur som tillväxtmotor och upplevelser i världsklass. Projektrummet blir en experimentell plattform med samtal, aktioner, konst och mat. Ett rum med utsikt genomförs under ett års tid genom en rad publika händelser. Projektet drivs av konstnärerna Eva Arnqvist och Karin Lindh samt arkitekten och konstnären Adriana Seserin.

”The 2nd International Visual Methods Conference will be held at the Open University in Milton Keynes from 13th-15th September 2011. We invite academics and others who work with visual methods to take part in presentations and discussions, as well as a programme of workshops, viewing a variety of exhibitions and screenings.

Following the success and interest generated at the first conference it was decided that a conference focussing on visual methods should take place every two years, enabling the growth of a visual methods community.

At this second conference there will be three internationally acclaimed keynote presenters, Professor Carey Jewitt (Institute of Education, University of London, UK), Professor Ludmilla Jordanova (King’s College, UK) and Katerina Cizek (National Film Board of Canada).

Alongside this, workshops will be held for those new to visual methods, there will be paper and panel sessions as well as a range of exciting exhibitions and screenings around the conference venue. Presentations will focus on state of the art visual methods as well as innovative real world applications.”

Close to Nature / Lähellä Luontoa

What does it mean to be close to nature? This question is examined in this video work based on 9 short clips. The first clip of a woody landscape was recorded outside of Taivalkoski, Koillismaa, Finland using an Intenso Viddy, a cheap Video Messenger.

The clip, 30 seconds in duration, of the landscape was transferred from the Viddy to a laptop. When played on the laptop the screen was filmed with the Viddy, creating the second clip and another iteration of the primary filmed sequence. The process was repeated until there were 9 clips representing the landscape. Each of the nine iterations brings the viewer closer to the scenery, while the image and sound also become more distorted and noisy.

The Viddy is marketed as a fridge magnet with possibilities to record and play messages. With it’s 1,8” screen, simple microphone and camera it has poor audio-visual qualities. In Close to Nature the limited quality of the Viddy is used to evoke the character of the work. Each iteration of the initial clip induces a closer image, but also more abstraction. By using the side effects of a cheap consumer electronic device, and no video editing of the clips, serendipitous ready-made dimensions and glitch aesthetics are high lighted. In contrast to genres of landscape art, and representations of nature where the sublime and feelings of wonder and awe are valued, Close to Nature instead stress an appreciation of imperfection, chance, and the juxtaposition of a media dominated consumer society with experiences of nature.

Out of Hand

Further aspects of the video work Close to Nature are called forth in a series of birch wood slices featuring minimalist paintings.

The paintings, made in watercolour are based on impressions derived from viewing the 9^th part of the series. By using no brush, only fingers when painting, and by using the interplay between water colour, gesso primer and the water absorbing wood, the irregularities and glitches characterizing the uses of technology in Close to Nature are remediated.

These colour stained pieces of wood introduce questions on materiality and the interplay between controlled design and serendipitous irregularity. The three pieces become another dimension of representation, this time in another medium, raising further questions about mediation and transmutation.

Capture

The work is based on audio field recordings from the peak of Iso Syöte, a wood covered fell North West of Taivalkoski. The sounds of an approaching thunderstorm were captured and are played from speakers enclosed in a rectangular wooden box.

Thunderstorms experienced in mountain regions were a common theme of romantic representations of sublime nature. Here the sound of that kind of scenery is captured in a double sense, evoking other feelings than wonder and awe.

Muutunut Selkonen

Ready-made. In this piece something highly inconspicuous and mundane is used to evoke associations to identity formation and the transformations of the Koillismaa-region.