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26/5/2004

N.I.C.J.O.B.

Kunsthalle 8, Wien

Delving into the realm of movie landscapes and their representational structures, some of the crucial moments of cinematic narration frequently emanate from individual visual and acoustic markers. Such moments of fragmentation rely on the essential qualities of photographic memory and the reconstruction of a specific reality. Aspects of contemplation linger as an antithesis to a lived reality, signifying a manifestation of desire in the produced imagery, where, according to Jacques Lacan, reality itself only obtains a marginal position.

The Vienna-based artist N.I.C.J.O.B. (French-born Nicolas Jasmin) captures such moments of cinematic narration, which he transfers, mixes, loops, and rearranges to create new versions of reality, which are dissected into anti-contemplative visual and acoustic reverberations. Using the found footage material of movies as source for further manipulation, N.I.C.J.O.B. tries to examine the unconscious of films in order to reflect the underlying currents of motion pictures as well as the desire for the ultimate gaze.

Starting with the interrelatedness of visuality and narrativity in found footage material, N.I.C.J.O.B.'s work entails a disruption of the given image and sound material, which triggers the desire to capture the 'decisive moment' (relating to Henri-Cartier Bresson's description of the essence of the photographic gaze). Yet, the endless repetitions and unpredictable turns in N.I.C.J.O.B.'s video works leave viewers at a discomfort and loss, which can also be seen as the result of the Lacanian constitution of desire. According to Kaja Silverman's reading of Lacan, 'desire results from the cultural cooptation of the subject's libidinal resources ­ that the subject supplies the raw materials, but is barred from the site of production.'1 This is also where N.I.C.J.O.B.'s work stets in. Being in charge of the production processes of visuality itself, the artist puts viewers at the threshold of desire, which his works activate but without the possibility to obtain full (libidinal) gratification. Here, the sense of lack does not so much result in an alienation of the subject from its own being, but from the objectified visual and narrative elements, which lead to a state of non-fulfilled meaning.

In his installation at Kunstbuero, N.I.C.J.O.B. not only puts viewers at a two-dimensional threshold between their own gaze and the (re-)presented video works. He goes one step further by setting up walkways through the exhibition space, where visitors have to proceed to a certain level, creating a specific distance between their position, their gaze, and the presented works.

Two wooden walkways determine the viewer¹s position vis-à-vis the works in this main exhibition space. The walkway to the left leads directly to the video projected onto the back wall. At the end, there is no railing which might prevent visitors from falling off the wooden plank. The open barrier corresponds with the situation in the video. In Trio (2001), there are three military-looking men who decidedly try to overcome an obstacle but are held back by the loss of their own physical power. What is visible in the picture frame, is a wall, over which a physically trained person repeatedly fails to jump. Through the skilled and ultra-short cutting mechanism, it seems as if we always deal with the same man trying his best, but in the course of the video, one can detect three men trying to fulfill the same task without success. The split-seconds of the original sound offer a staccato music piece, which emphasizes the physical power as well as the multi-dimensional edginess of the given video segment.

Whereas Trio focuses on vertical movement, Rebel Bell (2003-04) invokes the opposite. The video itself is shown on a monitor below the ceiling of the wall right to the entrance. A slightly higher walkway leads viewers close to the monitor, however still at a distance that their gaze has to be directed upwards in reference to the symbolic meaning of the bell as a tool of spiritual power. The bell¹s turning back and forth distorts our visual and acoustic perception. At times, the ringing tones go backwards to conjure up the demonic forces of a supernatural undertaking, making the bell struggle against its natural disposition. Towards the end, the bell fills up the picture frame in order to disappear and only leave traces of its ringing tone after the screen has blackened. N.I.C.J.O.B.¹s video makes the bell develop its own life, which can no longer be traced by physical persons or a visual recording device.

The outside window left of the entrance is covered with a large print, O.T. (nach Billy Joel ) (untitled, after Billy Joel), which looks as if the glass were broken. This joint work between N.I.C.J.O.B. and the Vienna-based German artist Josh Müller determines another threshold, between the outside reality and a visually constructed world, which can be accessed through the screen as a cultural and mental interface. In fact, the contours of this broken window were taken from an LP cover by Billy Joel and re-encoded for this very situation. The piece reflects both artists¹ working method and its aim to fragmentize given visual structures in order to have them de-fragmentized within a new thematic and spatial context.

While the graphically altered print prevents passers-by from seeing the show from the outside, N.I.C.J.O.B.'s second installation next door (at Kunsthalle 8) enables viewers to have a look into the room, however, through a barred window front. Inside the space, N.I.C.J.O.B. presents the b/w video Breaker (2002), in which a break-dancer is shown in action, however upside down. In the video, one can see bars similar to those erected in front of the glass façade, denying people access to the interiors of the room from both sides. The space inside the video consists of a subway passage, which people mostly cross without further notice. The dancer's movement, however, attracts the passers-by' attention as does the whole installation at Kunsthalle 8. This time, the dancer's rotations constantly move forward and cause a maelstrom of visual and acoustic reverberations. There are short intermittent pauses, and an accompanying sound of car sirens, which, together with the acoustical reverb, lingers after the credits on a blackened screen. In their overall presentation, the installation's double prevention from accessing real and virtual spaces through bars and screen forces spectators to curb their desire and split off the drives from their own being in this instance of non-fulfilled representation.
Walter Seidl
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1 Silverman Kaja. 'The subject.' Visual culture: the reader. Eds. Jessica Evans and Stuart Hall. London: Sage Publications, 1999. p.350.

Image: NICJOB BREAKER, STILL

OPENING: MAY 27th / 7 p.m.
MAY 28th ­ JUNE 26th, 2004

OPENING HOURS: WED ­ FRI 15.30-19.30, SAT 11.00-14.00

KUNSTBUERO / KUNSTHALLE 8
SCHADEKGASSE 6-8
A-1060 VIENNA
FON/FAX: +43 1 5852613

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