Thursday Night 09.30.04 — Presentation / Discussion with Elke Marhöfer+Yvette Mattern
Comments Off on Thursday Night 09.30.04 — Presentation / Discussion with Elke Marhöfer+Yvette MatternThursday Night 09.30.04 — Screenings / Discussion with Elke Marhöfer+Yvette Mattern
Contents:
1. About this Thursday
2. About Elke Marhöfer
3. About Yvette Mattern
Yvette will screen and discuss two videos
4. “Heroes” + “Hijack”
Elke will talk about three recent projects
5. helle nacht nichten; (bright night nothings;)
———-a video in cooperation with many
5. helle nacht nichten (bright night nothings)
———-25min, video — (german version)
6. learn to like the same – a project
———-in cooperation with the artist group l.a.raeven
7. what!ever!text! – a collective writing project
http://www.16beavergroup.org
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1. About this Thursday
What: Screenings / Talk at 16Beaver
When: Thursday September 30, 2004 7pm
Where: 16 Beaver Street, 4th Floor
Who: Elke Marhöfer+Yvette Mattern
Elke is a Berlin based Artist, Yvette is a Video Artist who lives and works between Albany, NY and Berlin. The two will screen and discuss some recent projects and following the presentations, we will open up time for a discussion about some of the issues they will be raising.
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2. About Elke Marhöfer
elke marhöfer, born 1967.
studies: whitney museum independent study program, new york 2001/02 / gender and cultural sciences, humboldt university berlin 1997 / MFA, hochschule der künste berlin 1996/90 / school of the art institute chicago 1994 / akademie der künste stuttgart 1991
grants + stips: cité des art international, paris 2005 / catalogue-grant berlin senate 2004 / akademie solitude, stuttgart 2003/04 / alfredo jaar grant, new york 2002 / film + video, Berlin Senate 1997/99 / school of the art institute chicago 1994/95
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3. About Yvette Mattern
Yvette Mattern, born 1963 in San Juan, Puerto Rico; video artist and video designer for avant garde opera, theater and performance; currently faculty at SUNY Albany in Art, Music and Technology; curriculum interests are in the history and practice of video art, the integration of live performance, music and video, video post-production and video installation.
Her individual and collaborative work screened, exhibited or performed include: “urban.dis.urban” at the ZKM Medien Theater, “Jakob Lenz“ Staatliche Hochshule für Musik, Karlsruhe, and the Riga National Opera House, Riga, Latvia, “Here & Now“ Burofriedrich, Berlin, “VideoRom“ Valencia Biennale, “My Safari“ Smart Project Space, Amsterdam, “Unpacking Europe” Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, „Malcolm X, Man, Ideal, Icon“ Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, „The Dream Series“ Anthology Film Archives, NY, and “Blacks Have More Fun“ The Kitchen, NY. She has received grants from Bonn Kunstfonds Projekstipendium, Art Matters, NYC, and an NEA Southern Regional Fellowship. She was the Film/Video/New Media Juror for 2002-2003 at Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart, Germany. She currently lives and works between Albany, NY and Berlin, Germany.
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4. Screening “Heroes” + “Hijack”
Yvette would like to talk about and screen “Heroes” her recent collaborative work with Robin Arthur, a founding member and performer in the UK performance collective, Forced Entertainment.
In addition, she will screen the video “Hijack” a video documentation shot spontaneously on the border between Germany and Holland, in August 2002. An Algerian family traveling on a commercial bus line destination: Berlin, Amsterdam, Paris; are discovered to be “illegal” passengers by Dutch Border patrol. The video portrays the poignant struggle of the Algerian family attempting to negotiate and delay an imminent arrest by “hijacking” the bus on the German/Dutch border.
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5. helle nacht nichten (bright night nothings) 25min, video — Elke Marhöfer
there is no desire to explain anything, neither an object nor a subject. at the best pick up. movement, emotions, bodies, maybe even just the evocation of bodies. the illustration of reality seems completely boring, cause the real circumstances are not yet absurd enough.
the historical remnant is in the question “what are you doing this summer?” – an idiom brought forward of jean rouchs ‘chronic of a summer’ – a pre-revolutionary movie, too.
semi-digital. semi-spectacular. semi-computer-hole. an outside does not exist anymore – there is also no outside of the images. no outside of the fragmentation. the film structure and its chains of meanings. different speeds. nevertheless, in the end nothing comes together to an higher unit. no error-aesthetic. the images are staying pretty clean. friendly denying. many little perfect image-units, which are already or only losing their discreetness via their number of amount and which are barely getting re-functionalized. to deny the ‘tree of meaning’, which in the end always wants to draw a conclusion. yet – you have to stop yourself drawing conclusions. to revoke yourself from the constraints of meaning, from which you have the impression that it is only able to maneuver in a certain field. waiting what happens. no unit. no subject of expression. the tree is dissolved, the aggregation survives partly. new aggregations of sub-trees. term-groups do not generate sentences but chains – which are not processed based. we don’t need to go nowhere and repeat the already formed tree-sentences.
instead forming a net of meaning without progression. one can only generated many other trees of meaning, if one seems to eliminate the known meanings and generates loopholes, nests for new ones.
faces. politician-faces, models-faces, victim-faces. to burst open. the non-face is not related with speech. cause it is absurd to believe that faces with language could deliver a message. one, that was not already there before. inside the language one doesn’t have a speech anymore. the general grammar is always connected with the education of the faces. the redundancy of the faces will be reciprocated.
images and gestures. destroyed. the gestures are not building onto each other, they cancel each out, do not built and were not made for the pleasure of the viewers.
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5. helle nacht nichten (bright night nothings) 25min, video — german version
es wird hier nicht versucht etwas zu erklären. weder ein objekt noch ein subjekt. im besten fall auffangen. bewegungen, stimmungen, körper, vielleicht sogar nur heraufbeschwören von körpern. die abbildung der realität erscheint völlig langweilig, denn die realen verhältnisse sind noch lange nicht absurd genug.
der historische rest liegt in der frage “was machts du diesen sommer?” – eine wieder hervorgezogene redensart von jean rouchs ‘chronik eines sommers’ – auch ein prärevolutionsfilm.
semidigital. semispektakulär. semicomputerloch. ein aussen gibt es nicht mehr, auch nicht ein ausserhalb der bilder. kein ausserhalb der zerstückelung. der filmstruktur und ihrer bedeutungsketten. unterschiedliche geschwindigkeiten. am ende fügt sich dennoch nichts zu einer höheren einheit zusammen. keine fehlerästhetik. die bilder bleiben fein sauber. freundlich verweigern. viele perfekte kleine bildeinheiten, die ihre diskretheit schon allein oder nur durch ihre mengenanzahl verlieren und kaum refunktionalisiert werden. sich dem bedeutungsbaum verweigern, der am schluss immer einen schluss ziehen möchte. ihr müsst schon selber damit aufhören schlüsse zu ziehen.
sich dem bedeutungszwang entziehen, von dem man das gefühl hat das er sich immer nur in einem bestimmten bereich bewegen kann. schauen was dann passiert. keine einheit, kein subjekt der aussage. der baum wird aufgelöst, die zusammenfassungen bleiben zum teil stehen. neue zusammensetzung von unterbäumen. wortgruppen bilden keinen satz sondern ketten – die nicht prozesshaft angelegt sind. wir müssen nirgendwohin und nicht den gebildenten baumsatz wiederholen. stattdessen ein progressionsloses bedeutungsnetz bilden. man kann nur dann viele andere bedeutungsbäume bilden, wenn man den anschein erweckt die bekannten bedeutungen zu elimieneren und schlupflöcher, nester für neue zu bauen.
gesichter. politikergesichter, modellgesichter, opfergesichter. aufsprengen. das nicht-gesicht wird mit sprache verbunden. denn es ist absurd zu glauben, dass sprache mit gesichtern eine botschaft vermitteln könnten. eine, die nicht schon vorher da war. innerhalb der sprache hat man keine sprache mehr. die allgemeine grammatik ist immer mit der erziehung der gesichter verbunden. die redundanz der gesichter wird erwidert.
bilder und gesten. zerstört. die gesten bauen nicht aufeinander auf, heben sich eher auf, bilden nicht und wurden nicht zur freude der betrachterinnen erzeugt.
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6. about learn to like the same / “the image is an act”– Elke Marhöfer
1.day: it is important that you eat your food with a little dessertspoon.
als ich diese cola-light coffeinfrei im laden fand war mir so als ob ich ein gutes bild gemalt hätte. (when i found this decaffeinated cola-light in the store, i felt as if i would have painted a great painting.) i know how unconscious your mind effects your body.
2.day: the most important thing is that we eat and drink EXACTLY the same and in the same amount, and each day it is more or less the same.
die stilisierung einer haltung praktiziert von den individuen und der gesellschaft, um die körper und ihr verhältnis zueinander zu regulieren. (the stylization of a mindset practiced by indivduals and the society to regulate the bodies and their relations to each other.) it is the society that decides who is ‘outside’ and who is ‘inside’, there is no society possible if you don’t have this two items.
3.day: instead of cucumber juice fresh orange juice (150 ml).
es ist schwer normalität vorzugeben wo es keine abweichungen gibt. (it is difficult to pretend normality when deviance does not exist) it challenged us to be irritating, to irritate the world even more.
4.day: one more glass of wine (150 ml) than yesterday so 6 in total.
ich empfinde eine seltsam starke verbindung. (i feel a strange connection) only the anorexic women have a right image of how fat or skinny their body is.
5.day: yesterday was the same as the day BEFORE yesterday.
die kunst des verhältnisses des individuums zu seinem körper. (the art of relation of the individual to its body) ‘aesthetic terrorism’ means to infect people with your way of thinking, ideas and ideals – to brainwash them with the idea of what is a beautiful or a perfect body.
6.day: 110 gr. of white fish baked in oven with olive oil.
ein konkretes einwirken auf das selbst zu entwickeln, ist eine art politischer aktivismus. (a concrete acting onto one ‘s own, is a mode of political activism) it is your mind which decides which steps you are going to take in life, which will affect your body.
7.day: yesterday was again the SAME. for lunch we had cold-cumcumbersoup.
nicht gesellschaftliche kodfizierung, sondern fundamentale stilisierung der freiheit des eigenen körpers. (not social codification, but fundamental stylization of the freedom of ones own body) coin ‘wild zone’ live individuals who are not controllable, who live out of the society, but the society needs this zone in order to control individuals in its society.
8.day: it is very hot in Holland. so yesterday we drank 200 ml cola-light caffeinfree extra and 400 ml water more.
bei der methode ‘mensch’ haben wir zwei waffen: unser bewusstsein und unser leben. (within the methode ‘human’ we have two weappons: our consciousness and our life) you can also apply that to an example nowadays: marketing strategies of society investigate these wildzone-individuals in order to know what is going to be hot or wanted in the future – which is not yet known in society. that gives this wildzone-individuals a certain power, which stimulates the individuals in society to keep these individuals small, so they don’t get to much power.
9.day: the time for a glass of white wine (150 ml) is about 1 hour.
diätetik wird politisch in einem staat der sich verpflichtet die sorge um das leben zu übernehmen. technologien des selbst in der freien kontrollgesellschaft. (dietetics becomes political in a state that commit itself to take care for life. technologies of the self in the liberal society of control.) something which is not nice and getting sick is part of the project.
10.day: 90 gr. baked pangafilet with two baked cherrytomatos, 50 gr. of zeekraal and 1 smal potato.
der geist ist nicht nur von aussen gesteuert, er hat eine eigene ordnung und perfektioniert die dem körper immanente handlungsmacht. (the mind is not only controlled by an outsite, it has its own order and perfectionizes the power to act which is already immanent in the body. ) learn to like the same.
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7. question, thoughts and reasons related to what!ever!text! projects — Elke Marhöfer
address: www.whateverbeing.de
particular events of the past as well as of the present show us that the idea of freedom (as it has been defined until now) is no longer viable and that we must therefore re-invent it and practice it anew as a collective and/or individual self-construction.
in what relation do the production of social and aesthetic moments stand to the mergence of freedom and war? which instruments must we put to use in order to push through uniformity and standardization, of this world and to dip into a present where we no longer have to insist upon a disastrous sovereignty.
how can we judge art when the experiences we make no longer correspond to any definite side?
which methods must we invent to break down the false sense of social freedom and to affect the pre-determination of identities?
how are we to consider aesthetic practice or anticipation and our differences within the social machine?
how are we to think about a common telos within a splintered being?
how to practice (militant) utopias and to re-define poverty?
how can we not merely detest the spectacle but rather turn its diminishing power against the state and against authority? how to attack the state, its appearance of freedom, in favor of a new, more communal and co-operative space?