10 Jun - 09 Oct 16
LITTLE LIES
Curated by
Suad Garayeva-Maleki
Björn Geldhof
Participants
David Claerbout / Belgium
Soren Thilo Funder / Denmark
David Claerbout
Oil Workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain, 2013
Single channel video projection, HD colour animation without sound, loop
Taking inspiration from an image found online, Oil workers (from the Shell company of Nigeria) returning home from work, caught in torrential rain was created by digitally stitching independent visual recordings together into one seamless moving image. Initially, the viewer is guided over a motionless stream of rain on the street. With a hypothesis driven to turn something banal into something phenomenal, Claerbout studied different images and questioned the physical characteristics of oil and water. The result is a sculpture-like thickness of the water that alludes to the texture and tactility of oil. Next, the piece circles a group of oil workers taking sanctuary under a bridge. Drawn to the details, it is hard to miss the lifelessness of the oil workers' in their zombie-like representation. This is depicted through several abnormalities, such as faces with no eyes and broken gazes. This lifelessness provokes a social reflection on a generation in wait, trapped, as the shells of protagonists in the video, by the surrounding conditions of economic instability.
Soren Thilo Funder
The Cosmonaut (I don't see any God up here), 2013
HD Video, 5'30 min.
The Cosmonaut (I Don't See Any God Up Here) features an older man suggestive of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin (1934-68, Russia), the first human to venture into outer space. As his last opportunity before the launch in 1961, Gagarin urinated on the rear wheel of the transportation vehicle. Ever since, no cosmonaut has travelled into space without re-enacting this moment. The ritualization of this event is seen to bring good luck to cosmonauts. The suggestive narrative and mise en scène – established by the wintry setting, Soviet style music and costume - compels the viewer to draw conclusions iconic to the propagandistic and utopian era of space travel. Nevertheless, its just an illusion; Gagarin died young at 34 – never aging; Vostok 1, the first launch, took place on a spring day - not winter; and the bus is a Danish airport bus - not a bus used to transport astronauts to launch pads. Drawing the viewer into an illusion compels them into questioning a narrative that superseded the arms race into the 21st century, a narrative of a failed system, which grew old and void of dynamism.
Soren Thilo Funder
In This Very Moment (Antoine), 2014
HD Video, 5'30 min.
Originally an extract from The Adaptation (No-Thing Me-Lanch-Oly 'Bout Us), this work was shot when Funder saw a young boy rollerblading to music on a paved basketball court in Verdun, France. The backdrop is a grey and melancholic suburb. Historically, the basketball court is on top of what was once one of the largest battlefields of WWI, where over half a million people died. Despite the contemporary setting – characteristic of a society imprisoned by industrial life, the boy seems free from this, entranced in his dance and completely disconnected from his surroundings and its past.
David Claerbout
Breathing Bird, 2012
Two channel video on 19 inch flat screens, 30 min. loop
Only discernible through particles of condensation on the window, the moving image of a bird is both poetic and treacherous. The canary bird has various meanings in different cultures; its colour can allude to joy, its flight to freedom, and song to gossip. Historically canaries are used to detect poisonous gas in coal mines. A very superfluous attempt at saving human lives, this indicator suggests dubious confidence in dangerous conditions. In this work, the canary's entrapment evokes that of a miner's, further highlighting the inevitability of its fate.
Soren Thilo Funder
Swerve (You're Gonna Die Up There), 2016
3 Channel HD Video, 10 min.
The narrative of Swerve (You're Gonna Die Up There) revolves around the conversation between astronaut Billy Cutshaw and his future self. It is a three channel projection; the central panel drives through the streets of a rough neighbourhood in Washington DC; the left panel features the conversation; and the right panel features a string orchestra. The astronaut, Billy Cutshaw, is a fictional character that appears in two movies, 'The Exorcist' (1973) and 'The Ninth Configuration' (1980). The quote 'you're gonna die up there' is taken from the young girl in 'The Exorcist' as an eerie forewarning. Funder appropriates cinematic techniques to create a fictional illusion distinctive of the Space Race, the most iconic part of Cold War. These illusions are continuously broken down to reveal the technical mechanisms of filmmaking. Exposing the devices used in storytelling reveals the mechanisms used in ideological battles. Ultimately questioning their truth and ethics, Funder also condemns these mechanisms as a causality of these failed ideologies. Also central to Swerve is the conversation addressing Billy Cutshaw's death. It is imbued with premonitions that address the consequences of the conquest of the moon. They allude to the technological developments that have shaped the modern man to be isolated and consumed by virtual reality. In this work, Funder provides the opportunity to question the socio-political implications of ideological advancements.
David Claerbout
Travel, 1996 – 2013
HD colour animation with sound, 12 min.
Travel was created by carefully building an imaginary forest, up to every minute detail, through a technique, which the artist calls pictorial 3D. Interested in the way a piece of relaxation music can transport a listener between different mental states, David Claerbout digitally constructed an elusive landscape that would accompany this music and expand the viewer's mind-set. As a consequence of Claerbout's practice, the visuals in Travel are freed from any notable landmarks, as the landscape evolves from a European park into an Amazonian rainforest. This deters a viewer's ability to develop preconceptions about the location and enables them to be fully immersed in the piece. At the end of the film, as the camera pans out to reveal a bland suburban environment the viewer is set up for violent betrayal. This sudden disillusionment evokes a disenchantment associated with the fallacy of a singular perspective.