ongoing & upcoming:
the forest underneath
2-ch. video installation and inkjet print
2019
the forest underneath is a contribution to a visual investigation of the landscape of the meuse–rhine euroregion, curated by bas princen at the jan van eyck academie.
it combines into an observational video installation materials shot on location in and around the hambach forest, the last remnant of an ecosystem that has occupied the rhine plain since the end of the last ice age – and a site where corporate exploitation, environmental activism, and environmental degradation coexist.
the forest, of which only 10% remains, borders the largest open-pit coal mine in europe, and ghost towns doomed to be torn down. planned to be cleared to mine by the energy company rwe before 2020, the forest has been a political standpoint for environmentalists since 2012, when a diverse group of activists took permanent residence within it, in self-built ‘barrios’ and treehouses, behind barricades, to protect it from planned destruction.
it combines into an observational video installation materials shot on location in and around the hambach forest, the last remnant of an ecosystem that has occupied the rhine plain since the end of the last ice age – and a site where corporate exploitation, environmental activism, and environmental degradation coexist.
the forest, of which only 10% remains, borders the largest open-pit coal mine in europe, and ghost towns doomed to be torn down. planned to be cleared to mine by the energy company rwe before 2020, the forest has been a political standpoint for environmentalists since 2012, when a diverse group of activists took permanent residence within it, in self-built ‘barrios’ and treehouses, behind barricades, to protect it from planned destruction.
eendenkooien
multi-channel video installation
het nieuwe instituut
ongoing
The project weaves together a suite of differential, multiple, visual ethnographies, and sites in which life and death intertwine with multispecies formations, soil and landscape forms. Duck decoys are tightly orchestrated spaces consisting of a large pond ending in several funnel traps, surrounded by reed screens and trees; they are catching mechanisms deployed from the fifteenth century onwards to trap wild ducks through a multi-species process. Across the Netherlands, they have become naturalised ruins, as mallard ducks have moved to urbanised areas. Material transformations, novel colonisations and changing migration patterns are engaged as signals that fold in pasts and futures into a present of haunted landscapes.
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Hendrik Freerk Tillema (1870–1952) was a Dutch pharmacist, entrepreneur, self-taught ethnographer and photographer, lobbyist and advocate for hygienic standards in the colonies, who lived in the Dutch Indies for twenty years of his life up until WWI. The photographs and films that Tillema produced or collected during his time in colonial Indonesia are located in the archives of the Museum voor Volkenkunde, the Tropenmuseum and the Eye filmmuseum. Historians and anthropologists have often regarded Tillema’s work and legacy as unavoidable primary sources, often detached from the context of his life, his main business and ideology. With the six waves of cholera bacterium outbreaks in the background, in Semarang, he built the first purified and bottled water factory in the Dutch East Indies. This enterprise directly supported his expeditions, observations and publications. Tillema wrote numerous publications on hygiene and urbanism in the colony. His ideas fit the broader modern scientific and medical discourse on hygiene, which engendered spatial and racial segregation through fear for contamination, through environmental and bodily pollution.
bodies of knowledge
archival / spatial intervention
BIO26, 26th biennial of design
MG+MSUM / MAO
ljubljana
2020
What types of knowledge do archives embody and perform? What can’t they perform? Archives format what is knowable, preserve objects that materialise the past, index and systematise things. They are technologies that reproduce strict logics of categorisation and separation.
Bodies of Knowledge is an intervention within the The Temporary Slovenian Dance Archives, initiated by Rok Vevar in 2012 in his own apartment, and now hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova in Ljubljana. The installation shifts the archive from a site of knowledge retrieval, to one of knowledge production. By dismantling and mobilising documents, technologies and institutional framings into new compositions, the intervention invites visitors to access, navigate and contribute to the content of the archive, through movements and gestures. In the spirit of contemporary dance, Bodies of Knowledge breaks the internal logic of the archive by releasing the emancipatory power of movement. Historiographic structures dissolve, allowing for the emergence of alternative associations. Digital data are opened up not only as research information but as a physical experience.
Three screens feature fractured footage of archived videos from Slovene choreographers. Installed near each screen, video cameras record visitors’ movements. Each station is focused on a particular body part: Legs, Arms, and Head. The installation uses machine learning algorithms similar to those used in surveillance technologies to track and monitor the visitors' movements. The system identifies gestures and compares them to the documentation of the performances used to train it. When movements in the room are registered as similar enough, their recordings are saved and played back, mingled with archive footage. Visitors add their bodies and movements to the archive. The addition happens in real-time, but the fragments persist in the temporary archive until the end of the biennial.
Bodies of Knowledge is an intervention within the The Temporary Slovenian Dance Archives, initiated by Rok Vevar in 2012 in his own apartment, and now hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova in Ljubljana. The installation shifts the archive from a site of knowledge retrieval, to one of knowledge production. By dismantling and mobilising documents, technologies and institutional framings into new compositions, the intervention invites visitors to access, navigate and contribute to the content of the archive, through movements and gestures. In the spirit of contemporary dance, Bodies of Knowledge breaks the internal logic of the archive by releasing the emancipatory power of movement. Historiographic structures dissolve, allowing for the emergence of alternative associations. Digital data are opened up not only as research information but as a physical experience.
Three screens feature fractured footage of archived videos from Slovene choreographers. Installed near each screen, video cameras record visitors’ movements. Each station is focused on a particular body part: Legs, Arms, and Head. The installation uses machine learning algorithms similar to those used in surveillance technologies to track and monitor the visitors' movements. The system identifies gestures and compares them to the documentation of the performances used to train it. When movements in the room are registered as similar enough, their recordings are saved and played back, mingled with archive footage. Visitors add their bodies and movements to the archive. The addition happens in real-time, but the fragments persist in the temporary archive until the end of the biennial.
Bodies of Knowledge is an installation commissioned by MAO for BIO 26| Common Knowledge, the 26th Biennial of Design in Ljubljana, and hosted by the Museum of Modern Art + Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, within the Temporary Slovene Dance Archive.
The Biennial was curated by Thomas Geisler and Aline Lara Rezende. Design Mentor: Paolo Patelli; Knowledge Mentor: Ida Hiršenfelder; Project Manager: Matevž Straus; Team: Cyrus Clarke, Giulia Cordin, Juliana Lewis, Luigi Savio, Monika Seyfried. In collaboration with Rok Vevar / Temporary Slovene Dance Archive.
The Biennial was curated by Thomas Geisler and Aline Lara Rezende. Design Mentor: Paolo Patelli; Knowledge Mentor: Ida Hiršenfelder; Project Manager: Matevž Straus; Team: Cyrus Clarke, Giulia Cordin, Juliana Lewis, Luigi Savio, Monika Seyfried. In collaboration with Rok Vevar / Temporary Slovene Dance Archive.
shore leaves
2-ch. video installation
with Giuditta Vendrame and Giulio Squillacciotti
La Biennale di Venezia
16th International Architecture Exhibition
Dutch Pavilion / Work, Body, Leisure
2018
delving into the invisibility of labor under automation, shore leaves offers an entry point to the everyday world of seafarers, when the pace of logistical handling slows down. shore leaves are vital for the health and wellbeing of seafarers and they represent the short moments when sailors can connect with their families and friends.
the video documentation was produced during fieldwork aboard bulk carrier and container cargo ships harbored for loading and unloading in the ports of venice and rotterdam, and at the seafarers organizations that in both cities provide practical assistance and support to seafarers of all nationalities.
focusing on the spaces and gestures of this waiting time, the project confronts a reality that is generally concealed. the machinic efficiency in the circulation of the goods on which our economies are highly dependent has a counterpart: while human presence and labor are still indispensable and of infrastructural importance, human bodies strive to adapt to remodeled times and spaces and descend further beneath a threshold of visibility.
the video documentation was produced during fieldwork aboard bulk carrier and container cargo ships harbored for loading and unloading in the ports of venice and rotterdam, and at the seafarers organizations that in both cities provide practical assistance and support to seafarers of all nationalities.
focusing on the spaces and gestures of this waiting time, the project confronts a reality that is generally concealed. the machinic efficiency in the circulation of the goods on which our economies are highly dependent has a counterpart: while human presence and labor are still indispensable and of infrastructural importance, human bodies strive to adapt to remodeled times and spaces and descend further beneath a threshold of visibility.
stills from the video;
view of the installation;
view of the rietveld pavilion (photo: daria scagliola).