calendario eventi  :: 

X

31/3/2005

Two exhibitions

Migros Museum, Zurich

Mika Taanila, Human Engineering - Cory Arcangel, (Beige) Nerdzone Version 1 (2005)

MIKA TAANILA
HUMAN ENGINEERING

The works of Mika Taanila (b. 1965) evolve in the realms of documentary film, experimental music, its visual transformation and the set-up of scientific experiments. Nostalgia and belief in the future collide and mingle in his films. Exploration of technological developments and artificial intelligence and their social and philosophical implications run through his creative work like constants.

Mika Taanila became known to a wider audience as a result of his participation in the 7th Istanbul Biennale (2001) and Manifesta 4 (2002) in Frankfurt. In Futuro - A New Stance for Tomorrow (1998) Taanila looks at a classic story of a rise and fall, involving architectural technology. Using ‘found footage’ material, the film reconstructs the meteoric success of the Futuro house, based on a discovery made by the Finnish architect Matti Suuronen (b. 1933) in the second half of the 1960s. The Futuro house, shaped like a flying saucer and made entirely from plastic, became the object in which the belief in progress and utopian vision of the Sixties were reflected.

In the film The Future Is not What It Used To Be (2002) Taanila portrays and documents Erkki Kurenniemi (b. 1941), one of the pioneers of electronic music. In it Kurenniemi’s wishful notion of associating human beings and machines with one another is fascinatingly combined with his interest in the fields of robotics, information technology and music. Erkki Kurenniemi’s music has a central role in the film. Music and its visual transformation also play a vital part in Optical Sound (2005). In the tradition of Walter Ruttmann and Viktor Eggeling, who created abstract visual transpositions of music at the beginning of the 1920s, Taanila’s film is based on the composition The Symphony #2 For 12 Dot Matrix Printers by the Canadian duo [The User] (Thomas McIntosh and Emmanuel Madan). The dot matrix printer, long since superseded, takes the main role, hypnotising the viewer by means of its rhythmic monotonousness. For this exhibition Taanila will present his 1997 film Thank You For The Music - A Film About Muzak in a newly created installation entitled Stimulus Progression (2005). The type of music described as ‘muzak’ is understood to be functional and ‘easy-to-listen-to’; it is used in lifts, department stores, hotels and many working environments with the music generally rearranged to provide a constant background noise. The point and purpose of this form of music are to soothe those hearing it by means of its ‘anaesthetising’ and seductive structure and motivate them into consumer spending or greater productivity. Taanila’s film sheds light on the history of muzak and its psycho-acoustic impact.

Anonymous found footage, dating from the 1940s, of a physics experiment the point and purpose of which have not so far been explained provide the starting material for the installation Fysikaalinen rengas (A Physical Ring, 2002). Using a very precise cutting technique and hypnotic music, made by Mika Vainio, known of the pioneering Finnish electro-duo Pan sonic, the experiment again unfolds its mysterious effect. The football-playing robots in the film Robocup99 (2000) are also disturbing to look at – every year computer engineers and researchers specialising in the field of artificial intelligence meet to play for the Robocup. The utopian idea that in 2050 the computer and its artificial intelligence will be superior to human intelligence is implicit in the film. However awkward and comic the machines of the present may appear, it is already conceivable that by 2050 that utopia could have become a reality.

This exhibition presents a comprehensive selection of Mika Taanila’s work, including films like Futuro - A New Stance For Tomorrow (1998), The Future Is not What It Used To Be (2002), Verbranntes Land [Scorched earth] (2002) and Optical Sound (2005) as well as his video installations Physical Ring (2002), Stimulus Progression (2005) and Nocturne (2005).

A comprehensive exhibition catalogue with essays by Heike Munder and Ken Hollings will be published by JRP/Ringier.

Public guided tours: Sundays, 3 & 24 April, 8 & 22 May, at 3 p.m., and Thursday, 14 April, at 6 p.m.

Sunday, 8 May: Museum Day – entry to the museum free of charge!

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CORY ARCANGEL (BEIGE)

In the early 1980s, the 8-bit Nintendo NES game console revolutionised the entertainment market. From then on computer technology was no longer used purely for work purposes, but also for the masses as a medium for entertainment. In his works, Cory Arcangel (b. 1978) makes use of the games console, long since overtaken by millions of bits, and ‘hacks’ into its games. The progress of some games is interrupted and short-circuited, and they are reduced to their monochrome picture backgrounds, while other games are given a new narrative. Underlying the works is not just a nostalgic idea, but also an evaluation and reinterpretation of the games system, as well as an interest in composing electronic minimal music using 8-bit technology.

For the very formalistically reduced work Super Mario Clouds V2k3 (2003) Arcangel takes as his starting point Super Mario Bros, undoubtedly one of the best-known games. All the graphic elements of the original game have been removed, except for the clouds, which travel slowly along. While references to monochrome painting can be discerned in the monotonic pictorial structure, the work can equally be interpreted as an ironic commentary on the development of traditional cloud painting, which in art history terms is seen as the starting point of abstract painting. In the documentary film How to Make Super Mario Clouds (2003) computer laymen are given an explanation of how to programme their own Super Mario clouds. In Japanese Racer Game (2004) the original course of the game is likewise interrupted to make it unplayable – the racing car that should steer the player through the coarsely pixellated landscape has been eliminated. The game becomes a journey through a landscape of psychedelic colours. In Super Mario Movie (2005) the game Super Mario Bros is used once again as a source, though a narrative is generated here by way of a contrast, whirling the hero Mario through an extremely hallucinogenic world of colour reminiscent of German ‘absolute’ film techniques.

I Shot Andy Warhol (2003) can be interpreted as a tribute to Andy Warhol, the founder of Pop Art, who was unrivalled in the way he worked with unfamiliar pictorial material and industrial techniques of reproduction. Here the player slips into the role of Valerie Solanis who tried to assassinate Warhol in 1968. Armed with a plastic pistol the player must try to shoot the digital Andy Warhol. Super Slow Tetris (2004) and Space Invaders (2004), both well-known games classics, are supposedly distinguished by a highly participative character. But players’ anticipation will end abruptly - the monotony and slowness of the games leave behind an empty feeling of frustration.

Arcangel’s interest in electronic minimal music is demonstrated most clearly in the work Nipod v. 2 (2004). This relates to an Ipod that was created for the Nintendo games console. Arcangel, along with Paul B. Davis, Joseph Beuckman and Joe Bonn, founded the programming collective Beige, which also issues records and is responsible for many experimental Internet projects. The record The 8-Bit Construction Set, which offers samples of music from 8-bit consoles came out under the Beige label. In its artistic works Beige tries to formulate a criticism of the media, pointing to the fact that society is at the mercy of a programming ‘dictatorship’. The ‘autonomous’ status of the artist is especially endangered here; insofar as he uses computer programmes as an aid in his creative work, he can only evolve within the parameters specific to each programme.

PERFORMANCE!

With only a DVD player, a collection of commercially available Simon and Garfunkel DVDs, and a laser pointer, Cory Arcangel will be giving a lecture / performance detailing his relationship with the famous American Duo. Expanding on his sense of minimalism, this lecture will demonstrate that media need not even be altered for a compelling artwork to emerge.

Performance by Cory Arcangel on Saturday, 2 April 2005 at 10pm at the migros museum für gegenwartskunst. With Bar!

For further information please contact the exhibition curator: Raphael Gygax.

More information can be found online at:
http://www.beigerecords.com/cory
http://www.post-data.org/beige

A comprehensive exhibition catalogue with an essay by Raphael Gygax will be published by JRP/Ringier.

Public guided tours: Sundays, 3 & 24 April, 8 & 22 May at 3pm, and Thursday, 14 April at 6pm

Sunday, 8 May: Museum Day – entry to the museum free of charge!

Image: Cory Arcangel

migros museum für gegenwartskunst
Limmatstrasse 270
CH-8005 Zürich
Opening hours
Tue, Wed, Fri 12 – 6 PM
Thu 12 – 8 PM
Sat, Sun 11 AM – 5 PM

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