calendario eventi  :: 

X

20/6/2013

Two exhibitions

ZKM_Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe

Eran Schaerf. FM-Scenario: Reality Race
An Exhibition at the ZKM | Media Museum

The exhibition “Eran Schaerf. FM-Scenario: Reality Race” will open at the ZKM | Karlsruhe, on June 21, 2013. The inter-media project uses the Internet as a production site for generating content for further media – more specifically: radio stations, exhibitions and publications. The project’s starting point comprises Eran Schaerf’s news radio plays from the years 1997 to 2011, as well as new texts.

“Die Stimme des Hörers” [The Listener’s Voice] (2002), a fictitious radio station, moderated by a computer program is exemplary of Eran Schaerf’s news radio plays. Here, Schaerf uses the newscast format in order to indicate the relativity of its objectivity claim: newscasts not only describe apparent facts, but allow such coverage to be one narrative account among many.

On the Website www.fm-scenario.net, Eran Schaerf set up an expanding archive of audio modules. This online studio is not an information website, but a production site open to all: “Things must be recyclable to be relevant. Welcome to fm-scenario.net, the online studio of Listener’s Voice. This is where you can create your own personal ‚Listener’s Voice’ mix, which you can share with other users and possibly get on the air. You don’t need a password. You’ll be creating your mix from fragments of broadcasts by Listener’s Voice, a radio station where listeners‘ calls are taken by an automatic moderator. The calls are everyday stories that listeners have staged in the station’s reenactment studio, conferences organized by listeners on air, blog entries by characters that have forsaken their fictional environments, commentary by the automatic moderator and, last but not least, broadcasts from other stations; because if nobody phones in to Listener’s Voice, the automatic moderator switches to Station Search, where it borrows programs it finds in its reception area and re-broadcasts them. So make your selections, mix a minimum of two fragments, and your own personal compilation might get on the air!” (www.fm-scenario.net)

From this archive of audio modules ZKM curator, Margit Rosen, compiled the narrative “FM-Scenario: Reality Race”: a listener logs him or herself into the program “The Listener’s Voice”, yet hesitates with the required registration of gender. As in state regulations, the machine compels the listener to identify him or herself as an individual by way of gender – as a necessary basis for all further communication. Were the moderator not a computer program, it would, perhaps, understand that gender is not clearly defined, but is constructed in the enactment of roles.

This montage serves Eran Schaerf as a script for a performance, which takes place in the exhibition space in front of cameras, though not before an audience. The imagery thus produced, is one of several elements of the three scenic installations featured in the exhibition:
In one installation, the audio-montage "FM-Scenario: Reality Race" created by Margit Rosen, will be heard – its scenography is a spatial reference to the television test card, which has long-since disappeared.

The two other installations in the exhibition focus – just like close-ups – on two topics from “FM-Scenario – Realitätswettlauf” [Reality Race]: The comprehension of gender by the machine or rather the automatic moderator and the ambivalence of media imagery. The second installation “Geschlecht (Geschichte)” [history (gender)] therefore shows the stock footage produced prior to the exhibition as one possibility of turning a narration into images. Depending on the entrance chosen, the installation "Robin Hood of the West Bank" can be seen as the start or conclusion to the exhibition. The law court presented here may recall the event, as well as its possible restaging for the media.

The exhibition is the third of five planned exhibitions of the project “FM- Scenario – The Listener’s Voice”, by Eran Schaerf.

Margit Rosen’s audio-montage will be broadcast on June 21, 2013 at around 9.03 p.m. by the Bavarian Broadcasting Cooperation (Bayerischer Rundfunk) on Bayern2 as part of the program “hör!spiel!art.mix”. After the broadcast, the program will be available as podcast for downloading on www.hoerspielpool.de, where previous montages, as well as the background broadcasts can already be found.

Project Curator: Joerg Franzbecker
Project Management: Herbert Kapfer and Joerg Franzbecker
Exhibition Curator: Margit Rosen
Project Coordination ZKM: Annina Zwettler
Performance and Image Production: in collaboration with Kerstin
Honeit, Karolin Meunier, Stefan Pente, Andrea Thal and William Wheeler

The project is funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). “FM-Scenario – The Listener’s Voice” (2012–2014) is a production of a production e.V., Berlin and Bayerischer Rundfunk/Hörspiel und Medienkunst in cooperation with Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Les Complices, Zurich; Museum für Konkrete Kunst, Ingolstadt, and the ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe.

About the artist:
Eran Schaerf, born in 1962, in Tel Aviv-Jaffa, has been living in Berlin since 1985. His works have been shown worldwide, among others, at the 54th Venice Biennale (2011), at Skulptur Projekte Münster (2007), Manifesta 2 in Luxemburg (1998) and Documenta 9 in Kassel (1992). In 2013 Schaerf was awarded the Käthe Kollwitz Award of the Academy of Fine Arts Berlin.
To his radio plays, produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk belong, among others, “Wie gesagt. Theater- oder Taxistück” [As If Said. A Theater or Taxi Play] (1997), “Die Stimme des Hörers” [The Listener’s Voice] (2002), “Sie hörten Nachrichten” [You heard the news] (2005), “Nichts wie Jetzt” [No time like the present] (2009) or “Die ungeladene Zeugin” [A Witness Unsummonned] (2011).

---

ZKM_Gameplay – The Game Platform at the ZKM
Start New Game!
Relaunch of the Exhibition at the ZKM | Media Museum

ZKM_Gameplay is the new permanent exhibition on the theme of video games and experimental forms of play. The opening is scheduled to take place as part of the festival of science EFFEKTE on June 21, 2013. Computer games have been exhibited at the ZKM | Karlsruhe since its opening in 1997, as they represent an essential part of the digitally marked life-world. Since then, numerous new forms of artistic, experimental, media-reflective as well as ‘serious’ types of games have been developed. Today, the cultural influences and economic force of the games have become very pervasive. This has made the games an important object for the ZKM | Media Museum.

ZKM_Gameplay extends across the entire 2nd floor of the Media Museum. A varied selection of exhibits is on display: a large area is dedicated to works of game art ranging both from art which has computer games as its subject, and computer games designed by artists. Added to this are computer and video games, which illustrate the entire range of the medium and make these experienceable in the Media Museum.

One main area of focus is taken up by independent games and serious games; approaches which have distinguished themselves, for example, by particularly innovative games ideas, an interesting experimental claim, a powerful cultural effect, or a unique consciousness of its own means and forms of expression. Adventures, such as Jakub Dvorský’s "Botanicula" or Krystian Majewski’s "Trauma", platform games, such as Jonathan Blow’s "Braid" or racing games, such as Mario von Rickenbach’s "Krautscape" comprise the diverse facets of video games. In "Journey", the player discovers with a teammate a mysterious desert landscape, and, in "Shadow of the Colossus", the player engages in combat with giants the size of a house. Classics, such as "Pong", "Pac- Man" or "Super Mario World" still form the genealogical gallery of this presentation.

The exhibition’s special highlights are, among others, the game "The Night Journey" by internationally known media artist Bill Viola. In "The Night Journey", the artist translates the video aesthetics, which he has developed and perfected over many years into the interactive form of a computer game.

Feng Mengbo, from China, is represented by his spectacular work "Long March: Restart", which has already been exhibited at the MoMA PS1. The work of art comprises a sixteen-meter long projection, on which unfolds a game designed by the artist. Feng Mengbo is the first artist to have been allowed to exhibit a computer game at the Documenta 2002 as a work of art.

The artist Mary Flanagan shows the work "[giantJoystick]": the three- meter high sculpture consists of a functioning joystick. Due to its size it has to be operated by at least two persons with unified forces. The artist couple Jodi, present non-representational games. Jodi (Joan Heemskerk and Dirk Paesmans) have transferred brutal first-person- shooters into abstract forms, and thus make visible their mode of functioning.

The age ratings of the games in ZKM_Gameplay range from 0 to 12 years-old. Most of the games are suitable for children, but may also appeal to adults in the same way.

The game "Heavy Rain" is recommended from the age sixteen upwards. This is an adventure in which, in an interactive thriller with film noir elements, players go in search of a kidnapped boy. The game "Limbo" is a platform game in a sinister comic style, and sixteen years is also the recommended age. As a critical commentary on violence in video games, the artist group "and-or" from Switzerland presents the game "Laichenberg". In conventional first-person-shooters it is usual that a figure which has been shot down disappears from the game as if by magic. The Swiss art project criticizes the brutality of many video games in that this does not occur, namely, in "Laichenberg” the shot figures do not disappear, but rather gradually begin to clog up the playing field so that the game finally metaphorically suffers a heart attack.

Curators: Stephan Schwingeler and Bernhard Serexhe

Image: Eran Schaerf, fm-scenario #1965, 2013 © FM-Scenario and a production e.V., Berlin

Press Contact

Dominika Szope
Head of Department Press and Public Relations
Tel: 0721 / 8100 – 1220

Constanze Heidt
Assistant Press and Public Relations
Tel: 0721 / 8100 – 1821
E-Mail: presse@zkm.de
www.zkm.de/presse

Opening: Fri., June 21, 2013, 6 p.m.

ZKM | Center of Art and Media
Lorenzstraße 19 - 76135 Karlsruhe
Opening Hours:
Wed-Fri 10am-6pm
Sat-Sun 11am-6pm
Mon-Tue closed
Reduced prices, guilty from Wed−Fri, May 15−June 21, 2013
adults: € 4,00
reduced/ for groups of ten or more: € 3,00
7 - 17 years: € 1,00
families [max.2 adults+max.3 children under 18 years]: € 9,00

stampa

permanent link