Technological systems create, fragment and transform landscapes: a long video monitor stream, digitally mutated coastlines and strange urban microclimates introduce fascinating artificial worlds, blurring the boundaries between natural and constructed landscapes. Starting with documentation of Chris Meigh-Andrews’ video installation Stream Line and passing through a variety of spellbinding single-screen film and video environments, the programme also incorporates a presentation of Susan Collins’ most recent internet transmitted, real-time reconstruction of Loch Faskally in Perthshire.
Curated by Steven Ball, Mark Webber and Maxa Zoller.
THE NATURE OF SYSTEMS
Saturday 10 November 2007, at 8:40pm
London BFI Southbank NFT2
STREAM LINE (DOCUMENTATION)
Chris Meigh-Andrews, UK, 1991, video, colour, sound, 6 min
I was particularly interested in issues relating to the relationship between technology and nature, and with notions of the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’ and to the idea of bringing aspects of landscape into a gallery space. I had conceived of the piece as one that would cross an entire gallery floor, encouraging visitors to cross the space, following the motion across the monitors. The bridge seemed an apt device, as it had both metaphorical and practical dimensions; it would serve as a viewing platform, provide a way of crossing the room and reinforce the landscape concept. (Chris Meigh-Andrews)
www.meigh-andrews.com
BIT-SCAPES 135.1_08
Davide Quagliola & Chiara Horn, UK, 2006, video, colour, sound, 3 min
Shot on location in Western Australia, Bit-Scapes explores digital reproduction and manipulation. Through the combination of natural landscape footage and computer-generated graphics, BitScapes investigates the ambiguity of photo-realism in the digital realm as location material processed with custom software creates a series of images that reinterpret the organic landscape structures. The result is a series of audiovisual compositions where natural elements seem to coexist harmoniously with the artificial in the creation of a new ‘digital biosphere’. (Davide Quagliola & Chiara Horn)
www.quayola.com
THE SOUND OF MICROCLIMATES
Semiconductor, UK, 2004, video, colour, sound, 8 min
The Sound of Microclimates reveals the sights and sounds of a series of unusual weather patterns in the Paris of today. Here, architecture has become interwoven with the natural processes of the geographical landscape. Set within the un-noticed moments in time, extreme microclimates are presented as the future in city accessories, revealing the unseen urban terrains of tomorrow. They exist as a series of weather observations that animate the evolution of the inanimate urban condition. (Semiconductor)
www.semiconductorfilms.com
SUBURBS OF THE VOID
Thomas Köner, Germany-Finland, 2004, video, colour, sound, 14 min
Köner used 2000 photographs for Suburbs of the Void. The visual material belongs to a traffic security camera. It transfers the pictures via the Internet, where Köner collected them and arranged them into a video. The town is situated in Northern Finland near the polar circle. Permafrost and darkness dominate the sight most time of the day. For Köner, the permanent cold is connected with a general slowing down leading to a sharpened attention. The soundtrack supports this aspect. Sometimes one can hear slight noises of playing children in the background. In front of the complete emptiness, these sounds must occur like memories, telescoping from the distance into the picture. (Holger Birkholz)
www.koener.de
TRAIN NO.8
Daniel Crooks, Australia, 2005, video, colour, sound, 6 min
In Train No. 8, Daniel Crooks uses his signature ‘timeslice’ technique to offer an unexpected ride through a London urban landscape. In his experiments, Crooks divides digital footage into segments of time; when reconstructed the segments offer a distorted version of reality where time, space and motion appear on the same plane. (FACT)
www.dlab.com.au
BIT-SCAPES 135.2_03
Davide Quagliola & Chiara Horn, UK, 2006, video, colour, sound, 3 min
See above
UNTITLED
Rachel Reupke, UK, 2006, video, colour, silent, 2 x 90 sec
Rachel Reupke bounces the background and foreground in her videos, propelling the viewer into different dimensions within the same space. The shots appear to have been recorded using a remote automated camera and are presented as brief clips, extracted from perhaps days of footage. Viewing these simple panoramas becomes an increasing complex experience as changes in atmospheric conditions affect the camera, the auto focus shifts and the weather closes in. (Danielle Arnaud Gallery)
VOILIERS ET COQUELICOTS
Rose Lowder, France, 2002, 16mm, colour, silent, 3 min
Little is necessary for everything to appear differently. The date, the hour, the weather, the space’s layout, one’s glance or presence of mind … can make everything change. The boats sail out of the Vieux port in Marseilles to be amongst the poppy fields. (Rose Lowder)
BIT-SCAPES 135.7_13
Davide Quagliola & Chiara Horn, UK, 2006, video, colour, sound, 3 min
See above
AS WE ALL KNOW
Alix Poscharsky, UK-Germany, 2006, 16mm, colour, sound, 8 min
This film is a six-hour time-lapse sun track, shot around sunset. With the sun locked in the middle, the earth appears to be moving from left to right across the frame (or around the sun). Referencing science fiction, this film is about the discrepancy between a scientific world-view and everyday life. As we all know, the earth is moving round the sun, but the sun appears to be moving round the earth. (Alix Poscharsky)
www.elusivetuesday.com
The following works are showing in the BFI Foyer
GLENLANDIA (excerpt)
Susan Collins, UK, 2005-07, online, colour, silent, 2 years
Glenlandia is intended to be viewed full screen and updated live to your computer in real time. Now offline, this version is compiled from the archive of images providing continuous documentation to give an impression of how the work appeared live. From September 2005 to September 2007 a webcam transmitted images of Loch Faskally, Perthshire, Scotland from the FRS Research laboratory, Faskally. The webcam harvested images pixel by pixel, second by second, day by day over the course of the two years. Each image was collected from top to bottom and left to right in horizontal bands continuously, marking visible fluctuations in light and movement throughout the day and being archived at two-hour intervals. Although this appears to be a quintessentially natural Scottish landscape, Loch Faskally is in fact man made. It was created behind the hydro dam at Pitlochry which was built in 1947-50 as part of the North of Scotland Hydro-Electric Board’s Tummel/Garry Power Scheme. (Susan Collins)
www.susan-collins.net
TREE STUDIES
Chris Welsby, Canada, 2006, 3 channel video installation, colour, sound, continuous
Documentation of a three-screen, weather-driven installation made for the Gwangju Biennale, South Korea, 2006. Combining the speed and versatility of modern technology with the strength and spiritual significance of the tree, this installation suggests an environmental model where technology can work collaboratively with natural forces. The installation uses modern high speed communication systems combined with customized software and computer technologies to harness the energy produced by the rotation and tilt of the planet and transformed that energy into an open, self regulating and interconnected system. The system monitors weather data from three different continents and uses this real-time information to edit three files of pre-recorded movie footage of a tree seen against the background of a stormy winter sky. The combinations of imagery and sound generated in real time is unique at any given moment and is part of a continuously evolving process fuelled by the operating system’s interaction with the planetary weather system. In the sciences, this generation of image and sound is often described as an “emergent” property, a term used to describe self-organization in all living systems and on a planetary scale this is recognized as the dynamic origin of biological life, cognition and evolution. Drawing on the ancient concept of the earth as a living system, combining the traditional Eastern concept of Yin and Yang and systems theory from contemporary science the work suggests a new post Romantic form of landscape art with relevance to the issues of our own times. (Chris Welsby)
www.sfu.ca/~welsby
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