calendario eventi  :: 

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13/12/2007

Chapter 2

think.21 Contemporary gallery, Bruxelles

Think.21 is pleased to present for the first time in Brussels the work of internationally acclaimed artists Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Daniel Rozin, Lincoln Schatz and Björn Schülke. The exhibition will feature electronic, video and kinetic installations, which require the viewer’s active participation in order to ‘exist’.

The artists use in their practice new technologies, software, custom-made algorithms and video cameras to capture the physical presence of the viewer and his surrounding environment. Anyone who approaches the pieces in the exhibition will instantly discover that his presence instigates a set of chain reactions. Each piece responds to the viewer by watching him, recording him, following him and throwing back his image at him. Far from being surveillance devices that control individuals and urban spaces, the works of Lozano-Hemmer, Rozin, Schatz and Schülke are characterized by a playfulness that sets a more relaxed tone to the ‘being watched’ experience and invite the viewer to cultivate his fascination for self-observation.

Their work has been exhibited among others at the Venice Biennial, the Shanghai Biennial, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Taiwan National Museum of Fine Art, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Ars Electronica and California Museum of Contemporary Art.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (b. 1967, Mexico) works in electronic media to produce interactive installations combining the languages of architecture and performance. His work is based on the appropriation and transformation of technologies such as robotics, surveillance and telematic networks to create platforms for audience participation and interactivity. His large-scale light and shadow installations are inspired by animatronics, carnivals and phantasmagoria, situating the spectator as a fundamental component to 'complete' the work.
Glories of accounting is an interactive installation with a surveillance system that detects the position of the public in the exhibition room. When someone walks into the room, large hands appear on the screen automatically. The hands rotate along their forearm axis, following the visitor with the open palms always facing him or her. As more people enter the room, more hands appear and each follows a member of the public. Ultimately the piece is a visualization of electronic detection, using a metaphor that signifies both distance (as in a “stop” gesture) and inclusion (as in the expression “show of hands”).

Daniel Rozin (b. 1961, Israel) creates interactive installations and sculptures that have the unique ability to change and respond to the presence of a viewer. Although computers are often used, they are seldom visible. In most of his pieces the viewer takes part, actively and creatively, in the performance of his art. In his recent work, Rozin focalize on the concepts of mirrors and the mediated perception of the self. Rozin’s mirrors are mechanical devices that are made of various materials but share the same behavior and interaction; any person standing in front of one of these pieces is instantly reflected on its surface. For more than a decade Rozin's art has employed a wide range of materials including chrome spheres, flat wood panels, and city trash from the streets of New York. Software art that links screenbased performance with real-time video processing has been another focus of Rozin's efforts since the mid- 1990s.
The Snow Mirror uses an artist-authored algorithm that floats site-specific visual imagery of the immediate past into the present. The piece is the first in a series of works that celebrate slowness in black and white. In this piece the image of the viewer is created by the congregation and accumulation of white snowflakes in areas of the image that are brighter. The result is projected on a transparent silk fabric, which creates a feeling of the flakes being suspended in space.

Lincoln Schatz (b.1964, United States) works in new media and sculpture. Since 2000, he has focused on the experience of place and the meanings produced by the collisions of nonlinear sections of time. Through his custom software, Schatz selectively records and displays video images culled from specific environments. Most recently Schatz has created generative video works that collect, store and display more than eight years of video memory. From its start date each piece collects video from its environment daily, amassing thin slices of video/time. On-screen those slices overlap and juxtapose with images from current time. Like the human mind, past and present events wash over one another resulting in new possibilities and impossibilities.
Cluster evolves over an extended period of time, daily accruing thin slices of video from its environment and storing them onto a computer. Saturated videos ebb and flow across the screen. Organic geometries are cut out of time and layered on top of each other, creating a new time-based sculpture, which is constantly in flux. Crisp and vibrant, Cluster creates a new reality in which history, time and place is compressed.

Björn Schülke (b. 1967, Germany) designs objects that playfully transform live spatial energy into active responses in sculptural form. Born from a world of spaceships, unusual scientific instruments and robots, some of these pieces also employ alternative energy sources—and speak powerfully to today’s environmental concerns.
Observer #2 is a giant three-legged robot-like menacing structure that dominates the space it occupies. It seems to sense the spectators presence and starts observing: moving around its own axis, switching on its flashing lights, reviewing the images shot during its 360° pans. At once simple in its propellor-induced speed and complex in its registration of sound and image, its apparently observational functions give rise to an uncanny feeling with elements of paranoia and apprehension. But it is foremost an artful relative of the robots: one who combines strict technological functionalism with creative playfulness.

Think.21
Rue du mail, 21 - 1050 Brussels Belgium
Opening hours
Tuesday to Saturday 12pm to 6.30pm or by appointment

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