2nd word: Disruption

The word does not have to be in a negative context. The following artists use disruption as device to re-contextualize aspects of life and illustrate a point. Disruption can be within an image representing reality or reality (everyday life) itself.

1) Nicolas Moulin

Impossible dystopic architecture created through image manipulation. I particularly enjoy the street views as they portray the unwalkable city and deals with theories by Henri Lefebvre and Jane Jacobs. Public space are one of the essential topics in my empty city scapes.

review: http://www.frieze.com/shows/review/nicolas_moulin/

web site: http://www.galeriechezvalentin.com/fr/artistes/nicolas_moulin/

2) Katerina Drzkova

In her work subjective point of view is by itself a disruption of reality. Multimedia artist, who creates an array of different works around the topic of space and place.

Using dozens of systematically collected postcards I reconstructed how one of the most popular destinations of Czechs in the 1970ies, the seaside resort Albena in Bulgaria, was looking like.
Based on that data I created a three-dimensional model of Albena.
Thanks to the recurring architectonic elements I was able to imagine some places that were not visible on the postcards because they were not attractive enough to be shown. In my model the hidden places were marked black in contrary to the white parts showing the “most beautiful” sites.

In this project I tried to move through an unfamiliar space using only information supplied by a camera. For one hour I was walking through the interiors of an abandoned polyclinic.
Before my eyes I had the display of a digital camera which was turned off. Only when I encountered an obstacle I pressed the release to see an image on the display for about 3 seconds. Afterwards I was able to take another step through space.
In this work I used one photograph to create two different images.
Possible manipulations of the photographic perspective are intentionally visualized by distorting the image and marking white contours on the area that is focused on. The marked area appears as the front side of the building. By choosing variable front sides, the buildings appear completely differently.

web site: http://www.katerinadrzkova.cz/

3) Vitto Acconci

4) Eva and Marco Mattes

This piece is very frightening for me as I have been in gaming zombie mode. It is amazing how people enter another space that does not physically exist and are willing to comply to its rules in order to achieve a non physical goal. Physical and virtual spaces can both become places.

My Generation from Eva and Franco Mattes aka 01.ORG on Vimeo.

5) Gabriele Basilico

Very few information and found by chance. An Italian photographer whose images examines architecture in a very similar way Struth did. His use of vacancy is very close to my images... and Catherine Opie's cityscapes (mine are color ulike the work of the above 3 photographers).
I found a book on him in the library only in Italian. He has worked since the late 70's until today.

A series of his is Interrupted City (1997), plenty of Roman architecture within the contemporary environment as well as mixing other epochs. Interrupted environment that is included in non functional way within contemporary structures, as well as disrupted idea of place and everyday life.
Disruption as war: Basilico photographed Beirut in 1991 and 2003





review: http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/302

gallery: http://www.galerieannebarrault.com/gabriele_basilico/index_eng.html
gallery2: http://www.crowngallery.be/basilico.htm

6) Edwin Zwakman

One of the many artists making models to look like real landscapes.

7) Hans Op De Beeck

I can only talk about his Staging Silence that I saw in the Hirshhorn.



I felt very comfortable with the interventions that happened throughout the video, model landscapes being built and rebuilt. It looks naive and childish, but not only.

web site: http://www.hansopdebeeck.com/
review: http://hirshhorn.si.edu/exhibitions/view.asp?key=21&subkey=489

Lecture 4: Michael Smith

His lecture came a little after Nakadate's. He is much older than her, video and performance artist known with his characters Mike and Baby Ikki. Michael Smith does not look for collaborators to use in his work, instead he turns himself into a sadly funny character that the audience laughs at. His humor is a device to examine social norms, unification, archetypes (similar to the smiling facades I did in Fall 2010). Unlike Nakafdate the audience does not laugh at the helplessness of the collaborator but the helplessness of Smith's character. The question is who we laugh at: the artist, the character, ourselves reflected in his character? Also is it OK to laugh? Nakadate is easy to praise or condemn in what she does in her videos. However, by laughing at Mike or Baby Ikki its the audience stepping into the role of Nakadate dancing around the frustrated man.

Inevitably, one question from the public was how close is Mike to the real Michael Smith. He laughed and said they are actually close. I admire the brave act of using himself as the character to make fun of, which goes against the logic of aggressive individualism Nakadate goes for. What he does is something very difficult in the art market.

It was also interesting to see his newest work as artistic marketable product, installations and objects. I like his emphasis on TV and internet as devices for uniformity in people. It seems that self negating humor is Smiths aggression, like William Pop L and Oleg Kulik.

Lecture 3: Stephen Vitielo

The Anderson gallery exhibit of Stephen Vitielo closed with him giving a talk. This was an overview of his previous work related to the piece in the show. It was valuable to hear and see the story behind the work and how he feels about it. He showed photos of the places where the sound recordings are from as well as photos of different installations with these recordings prior to the one in the Anderson. The emphasis was on the switch between a constructed and systematic environment like NYC, where Stephen grew up, and the wilderness of Australia or the Amazon river. He spoke about the indigenous people in the jungle in South America and how they think more in terms of sound than words or images. Their mental reality or sense of place was formed more on the audible experience than visual experience. What would be the differences between a place formed primarily on hearing than seeing? How would people's rationality be different in audible heavy versus image heavy culture? How would people's concepts in general differ? Stephen's work is about taking an imprint of physical space in terms of sound, spaces in which the mind constructs and systems of civilized humans have not been materialized yet. His work is about awareness of senses as he is more aware than average people of sound reality and he knows how to capture the unexpected.

Lecture 2: K. Rose

I was excited about the beginning of the lecture and her early work. The combination of performance and video reminded me of a theater play I saw 8 years ago in Sofia, an adaptation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita directed by Stefan Moskov. The staging included video projections interacting with the actors on stage. For instance, a character was beheaded by standing in front of a huge video projection of two hands tearing paper. The dark background behind the piece torn off coincided with the actors head therefore hiding it. The actors/characters in the play were treated like puppets as big hands or interiors of model houses were projected onstage. Given the fact that Kathy Rose did her experiments in the early 80's I was wondering what would happen in her work later on.

Her hand drawn animations imposed on her were great, she also performed really well in these pieces. Its no wonder she got NEA grants for these works. However, there was a break in her work that changed everything for worse. She began using more sophisticated video equipment and later digital equipment and it seems that she does not know how to take advantage of this. I would not call her newer work fake or lacking expressiveness. Rose seems to be confused by the medium. What happen in her later videos is behind the screen and this takes away all the life from her earlier ones where at moments I truly wondered what is the projection and what physical reality. Kathy's newer work also had little innovation, she kept on using the same images, even same samples, same music. She also did not contextualize her work clearly, besides Japanese traditional performing.

Lecture 1: L. Nakadate

It was very insightful to see her talk, mostly the way she talks rather than what she said. It is fascinating to me how she succeeded in a very conservative institution as Yale (maybe she didn't but that did not destroy her confidence), the unusual approach to her work at this time, her eventual recognition and the current exhibit in PS1. Laurel does what she wants and she believes in it to such an extent that she does not question its value or meaning. This became obvious to me from the way she answered a question from the audience whether she regrets exploiting the lonely men.

I did not like her early work. The moment when she entered the strangers homes is when she exposed herself to risk. As soon as she figured out these are wretched and miserable people, she did whatever she wanted. It is clear that the 3 men on her early videos are indeed lonely, don't know how to react to her dancing, don't know what is happening. I cannot imagine them harming her. Instead of being compassionate with their lack of social skills, she ridicules them. This recalled Amelie (2001) by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, where the very lonely main character interfered with the destinies of other lonely people in order to make them feel better. What Amelie was doing is totally opposed to Laurel in its intent. Nakadate is very nihilistic and reminds of celebrating over the weakness or misery of others.

Feeling lonely herself, she acts like children usually do: distancing themselves from the different or weak in the group. Laurel desperately wants to be different from the lonely middle aged men in order to reject the idea of her ownloneliness. This is done by ridiculing them and emphasizing her own youth, able body and daring character.

I can see a feminist discourse in her work, very distantly. Her early videos are about identifying weaker people and celebrating their weakness.
Is there any socio-economical consideration in her works? I did not ask her this question because I don't expect a honest answer anyway. Her victims are obviously of low income and this is something that sets her apart from them. How did she pay her studies in Yale, her trip in Japan, her 30 day train ride?

Instead of challenging gender power relationships her work seems to be exploiting power generated by her subjects economic hardship or emotional trauma due to different unknow reasons. What is lacking in her work is investigation of the reasons for her subjects current state. Instead she exhibits their way of being as a trophy.

Aki Kaurismaki has many powerful movies about loneliness. This is the main topic in his very unsettling Proletarian Trilogy including The Match Factory Girl (1990) about a female factory worker and Shadows in Paradise (1988) about a garbage man. Kaurismaki's painful focus is not just loneliness but most of all the reasons for it.

What can be seen in Nakadate's work is vast impermeable surface. Her crying face is a facade, a confrontational image rather than a personal experience. Given the fact how much recognition and shows she has made, it seems that the demand of the art market is towards more and sturdier facades.

Studio Vist: K. Rose

I showed Kathy all the work I could on the computer screen. I started with my current work, at that point only black and white and a few color ones. Then were the Bulgarian series, the Car Landscape, the Georgigrams. The empty cities did not catch her attention, she suggested to have more in order to suggest emptiness better. Then she really liked the start of the Bulgarian series but did not the second half. What she found in the sublime nature photos was my presence as an artist and individual, they are theatrical and dramatic. I agree, these photos are very successful as landscapes. Kathy liked the best my Georgigrams, they invite the viewer in my personal world. Her suggestion was to continue this series as they are most personal and inventive. Because I showed one panorama from the empty cityscape series Kathy referred to her father who used to be a professional photographer doing a lot of panoramas. She showed his images on the web site of a New York gallery.

Our meeting lasted for about 20 minutes, maybe because Kathy could not get into my current work and talk about it. Her world view and understanding of art is strongly related to the personal, the artist is to communicate a unique world they have access to. I like this but I don't fit there, or maybe to a lesser extent. It was very helpful to have an artist with different sensibility reacting to my work. Kathy advised me to go after the personal and to express it in my work.

Studio Visit: L. Nakadate

Laurel reacted strongly to my constructed spaces images, the only work I showed. Wondering whether that was a positive reaction, her visit informed me about types of viewers. She praised the photographs as images but was confused by my intentions behind them and the way I talk. She wanted to fit them within her own narrative and preconceived notions of what the reality is, which is fine. What was troublesome for me was her drive to impose that narrative on me.

The meeting started with listing names of photographers who have done work on the topic (or how she understands the topic) the names she gave are only American: Tim Davis, Todd Hido, Jeff Weddstone and Catherine Opie; without referring to Gursky, Struth or Atget for instance. Her other very pronounced reference was Alec Soth, she insisted that my images have to do a lot with his work. Her most favorite images were the Baltimore slum street and the pasted architect renderings on the glass entrance. What struck me was her saying several times "...what I want to see...". Laurel pushed the conversation towards the recession, the failure of the American dream, the bad situation in mid sized American cities. In her words this is what my work is about or should be about.

Indeed, there is recession and I have done work about the recession in Bulgaria, however, this is not the focus of my current work. The recession is one of the economic elements determining the landscape and social interactions, but the US is a huge thing and generalization is not what I want to do. For instance, the economic boom of the 1960's was actually more devastating for American cities. While many people lost homes and jobs due to the recession of the late 2000's, the car centered infrastructure and white flight that happened in the mid 20th century actually ruined the lives of many others. The worst times for American cities was not the recession but the 80's and 90's as consequences of infrastructure and urban planning. Richmond has greatly recovered from this period, Baltimore too, although to a lesser extent. My goal is not to illustrate the recession but look for the reasons behind the existing situation; examining spatial design, the realization of design and people's interaction with the built spaces.
This is what I tried to articulate, not sure how successfully.

Laurel was not happy about my point of view, in her words refusing to say that there is recession is "fucking bull shit" and is very ignorant to say such a thing as a foreigner. Also it is disrespectful to argue with a visiting artist. My answer was that I don't reject her opinion, on the contrary I respect it, as she needs to respect mine as well. The conversation continued after this point for another 10 minutes. She appreciated that I believe in my work and she really liked the photographs. Again there was a remark about Soth and his vision of America and how my images function for her as an alternative view. Her advice was not to photograph in NYC because so many people have done that. I still think about the value of this advice and what it means. This city is so huge and full of history and history is one of the things I try to work with.

Nakadate's response was a great example of place / space difference. After she labeled the work as "series about mid sized American cities" she did not try see the my intention in the series. Instead there was already a set narrative, a predetermined way of reading the images. I agree the work has documentary value, however, this is not the only thing it is about. The goal is not to show the reality (very subjective) but make the audience more sensitive towards the reality around themselves. Or at least this is my intention, I don't know how successful I am.

I'm currently looking at Catherine Opie's work, who is the good reference from the names she gave me. I will look up Soth as well.