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5/5/2008

Temporary States

Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam

Dora Garcia, Christoph Draeger, Yolande Harris, Jeroen Kooijmans, Vincent Meessen & Adam Leech, Manuel Saiz, Mounira Al Solh, Lieke Snellen.

'Temporary States' takes place in the context of the exhibition 'Territorial Phantom' about occupying and possessing space. A video presentation, an evening with Dora Garcia and through the Satellite Sounders of Yolande Harris the temporary or performative character of occupying -or being bound to- space shall be central in the programme.

Dora Garcia
Tuesday May 6
Start 8.30 p.m.
Artist talk and screening of Zimmer, Gespräche, 2006, a project around the audio-visual archives of the GDR political police, or Stasi.
Entrance 3,50 (students 2,50)

Artist Walk Yolande Harris
11 May 2:00, 3:00 and 4:00 pm
A city walk with artist Yolande Harris and her mobile 'Satellite Sounders' whereby live signals from satellites in orbit, together with the performer's coordinates on earth generate a continuously transforming soundscape.
Maximum of 5 people per walk (20 minutes)

Opening hours 1:00 - 6:00 p.m
Entrance exhibition and participation Artist Walk free with TMA Passepartout (valid from May 7-12).

Video program:

Christoph Draeger (CH, 1965, lives and works in NY and Switzerland)
Black September, 2002
DVD, color, sound, 14' 30'' min.
Collection Netherlands media Art Institute
The hostage action by Palestinian 'Black September' terrorists during the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich kept the world fettered to the television. All this was being broadcast live by the massively present media, which turned the hostages, the terrorists, as well as the eager liberators, into star actors in a suspenseful TV show. In this way, violence penetrated into our living rooms, although in there it could only bring about a theatrical effect.

In this video, Draeger paradoxically recreates the true grimness of the episode by re-staging this home theatre. He makes the historical TV footage play a role in the apartment where the hostages were held. Due to the illusion of infinity (same-picture-in- a-picture effect), the exciting viewing experience gets into a loop. In this way, the actors become genuinely frightened people and, as ought to be expected, the tragedy of an execution is, again, unbearable to witness.

Jeroen Kooijmans (NL, 1967, lives and works in Amsterdam)
Lost Recording, 2006
DVD, color, stereo, 1'39'' min.
Collection Netherlands Media Art Institute
'Lost Recording', which Kooijmans also refers to as 'message from the basement', evokes associations with video images of kidnappings as they circulate in the media: pictures of kidnappers or terrorists in balaclavas, announcing their demands. In Kooijmans' adaptation, you see a man dressed in black, wearing a mask with a bird's beak. A crow is sitting on his shoulder and he has a naked baby in his lap. He is playing a little with the child, which does not seem to be aware of anything unusual about the situation. Eventually it turns out that the video message is not from the masked man, but rather, from the baby. It is very definitely addressing the viewer in unintelligible baby-talk. This scene, whose setting appears to be a cellar or basement, almost looks too innocent to be threatening.

Adam Leech (USA, 1973) & Vincent Meessen (USA, 1971), both live and work in Brussels
The Residents, 2006
video, 6' 15'' min.
Produced by Normal, Brussels
Barry meets Lucy. They're both artists in residence in Europe. He's an American, she wants to be one. He is visa-less, she wants dual nationality. There's no feelings between them just a preoccupation with hospitality, citizenship and art. Somewhere in between a cynical tale, a political tract and a conceptual art-work, Adam Leech and Vincent Meessen have written a story of factual fiction largely inspired by their shared experiences.

Manuel Saiz (ES, 1959, lives and works in London)
Video Hacking, 1999
DVD, color, sound, 4' 20'' min.
Collection Netherlands Media Art Institute
Mockumentary is the term used to define a film genre which emerged a few years ago, and in which fiction films are styled as documentaries. It is the perfect way to give the audience the wrong idea about the truthfulness of the story, and at the same time to call the strict dividing line between fiction and documentary into question.
'Videohacking' is a mini-mockumentary in which a video hacker donning a balaclava tells us what he does and why. For those who have no more than a faint idea about the wondrous world of hackers, nerds and antiglobalists, the existence of such a character is plausible. He rents classic films from ordinary video shops, and sets out to adjust and improve these illegally on the computer, with a preference for scenes that he liked already. Then he returns the modified tapes, hoping that those who rent 'his' films after him will unknowingly be the better for it. It is not a question of ethics, he tells us, but what he is opposed to is copyright claims.

Lieke Snellen (NL, 1980, lives and works in Rotterdam)
jAM THEWOLSTRAAT!, 2006
DVD, 2'14'' min. looped
When you enter a space you immediately form a relation with the objects and the architectural elements within this space. Lieke Snellen responds in her video to how spaces are organized to allow for the choreography of people. In order to explore this she designed and undertook exercises in these locations, thereby using the body, objects and the spaces as tools. Herewith Lieke Snellen attempts to challenge the logic of these environments and utilized the proportions and capabilities of the body as well as the prevailing conditions. The movement of the body used the space to perform, looking for the possibilities the space offered and searching for borders within it. She tried to view the house as an object.

Mounira Al Solh (LB, 1978, lives and works in Beirut and Amsterdam)
The Sea Is A Stereo, 2007/8
video 3: Let's not swim than
DVD, color, sound, 7' min. looping
courtesy the artist and Motive Gallery, Amsterdam
The Sea IS A Stereo is an ongoing work about men who swim everyday at the beach in Beirut no matter the circumstances: rain, wind, war... Even as we read this, they might be swimming or preparing themselves to do so. The work consists of different elements: a number of videos, photographs, a lecture titled 'A Buttock Sitting Comfortably On A Watery Threshold' which is here on show, and other materials. I perceive these different materials as different possibilities for making The Sea IS A Stereo, which seems to me a never-ending work - just like the men will never stop swimming.


Netherlands Media Art Institute
Keizersgracht 264 Amsterdam
Office hours: Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Gallery hours: Tuesday through Saturday and first Sunday of the month, 1:00 to 6:00 p.m.
Mediatheque: Monday through Friday, 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.
Other times by appointment.

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