SPACE
IN
BETWEEN
With works of
ALEXANDER TILLEGREEN, NAM JUNE PAIK & WALTER RUTTMANN
OPENING: 4. 9. 2015, 7-10 PM
DC OPEN: SATURDAY, 12 NOON - 6 PM
DURATION: 5.9. – 5.10. 2015, OPEN BY APPOINTMENT
AGNES MAYBACH, MAYBACHSTR. 159, 50670 KOELN
CURATED BY JANA BAUMANN
Cabin Fever (six chapters) by the Danish artist Alexander Tillegreen (*1991) is comprised of a sound installation divided into six chapters marked by a series of abstract prints and questions the interaction between the visual and the acoustic in the viewer’s reflexion. In these virtuoso sound collages, the limits of our auditory experience, which in turn has a great influence on our visual experience, are investigated in an impressive way. The experimental sound cosmos is precisely structured and, at the same time, it also hauntingly irritates our percep- tion. Electronic signals resound and threaten us in their persistence; steps in a non-definable space increasingly intensify our sense of disorientation; compositional sequences of an instrumental or synthetic nature, as well as computer generated and human-like voices, force us to question our selfperception between the real and the unreal, between reality and virtuality. Where are we, and who are we? Analytically, Tillegreen questions the historical influences of sound based on a broad range of references, which extend from Karlheinz Stockhausen via The Velvet Underground and Pink Floyd to manipulated sound generation, and thus sketches an image of a social condition, which he helps us experience on a sensorial level. The appeal of this complex audio-visual juxtaposition is based within the direct communication with our subconsciousness – the artist elicits our hidden perceptions.
An initial investigation into the experimental juxtaposition of image and sound was conducted by the visual artist and film director Walter Ruttmann (1887–1925) with his series Lichtspiel: Opus I-IV (1921–25). The staging of the optical and the musical on equal terms, which he achieved especially in Opus IV (1925), is all but visionary. The black-and-white, cinematic image se- quence of dynamically changing geometric form elements ac- companied by a spherical musical composition rich in dissonance and anarchical cadences at a riveting speed is testimony of the times, which were marked by industrialization and technical innovations. As with Tillegreen, we see here the formulation of an avant-garde will to express a negotiation of sensual perception within a concrete contemporary environment.
In his video-film Electronic Moon 2 (1966), created in collaboration with Jud Yulkut, the media artist Nam June Paik (1932– 2006) also questioned the interrelationship between space, time, motion and form. He takes the defining of space to the extreme with the help of an initially moving play of water, the light effects of which merge into a moon-like form, which lingers on as a cosmic metaphor. The harmonious background music, Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade, contradicts the experimental, cross-media execution of the piece, while the contradiction of technical progress and man’s relationship to nature is also documented.
Alexander Tillegreen has been studying under Willem de Rooji at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main since 2011. He has presented sound performances at, among others, the Transmediale Festival in Berlin, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt and the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen.
Nam June Paik is considered one of the most important prota- gonists of media and video art. He studied Music and Art The- ory in Tokyo and Munich, followed by collaborations with Karl- heinz Stockhausen in Cologne (1958–1963). His work is widely recognized internationally.
Walter Ruttmann is the founder of abstract experimental film in Germany. His Lichtspiele were followed by such exceptional works as Berlin – Symphony of a Metropolis (1927). After 1933, he worked on the production of propaganda films for the National Socialists.
Jana Baumann (*1984) studied Art History and is currently working on her Phd at the University of Bonn. She is Curatorial Assistant in the Department of Contemporary Art of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main.
With kind support of
ZKM - Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie
