LandEscape Art Review // Special Issue Autumn 2015

LandEscape A r t Anniversary Edition

Fiona Hall, installation view, Australian Pavilion Venice Biennale 2015

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

C o n t e m p o r a r y

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Nicolas Vionnet

Gerd Brockmann

Miya Ando

Tracey Snelling

Lien-Cheng Wang

Rachel Duffy

Switzerland

Germany

USA

USA

Taiwan

United Kingdom

Vionnet’s preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. His chiefly largescale works play with space and expanse.

Although almost always realistic, his paintings have more in common with abstract images than real landscapes.

My work researches boundaries between fashion, art and society. In the last years I worked in different participatory projects and countries as contemporary multidisciplinary artist to research with experimental materials like blood, inner tubes and chains, to find new borders between fashion design, art, ephemeral concepts and space, getting a better comprehension of fashion and art as communication concept and I found a new visual language for me.

Since my studies at Istanbul I'm working between two countries and I've got inspired by both worlds to forge a unique connection between apparently contrary features of Turkish and German culture. The dissolution of boundaries, the fusion of both concepts is at the core of my works.

The installation piece Emptiness The Sky is inspired by a Japanese kanji character, ‘Sora’ which means both ‘emptiness or void’ as well as ‘sky’. Sunyata is another word for this idea. The idea was to create an empty space of reflection, the form is inspired by traditional ‘chashitsu’ or tea houses, a very simple structure which delineates a space separate from the mundane world. The piece is about memory, identity and the notion of ‘home’.

The free-standing sculpture is clad on the exterior with a charred wood, called Yaki-sugi or Shou Sugi Ban. This material is used in my neighborhood in Okayama, Japan.

Time is so relative. In film it can be used to present one minute of time happening in various ways, a lifetime happening in an hour, time being long and lasting seemingly forever, or time being so quick and then it's over. For Nothing, the tempo was so important, and was part of my original idea from the conception of the film. For most of the film, time drags on and the day seems to last forever.

Then, upon Jane's realization that she is stuck in a dead-end life and must get out, the pace picks up quickly, and the sound follows. Once there has been the dramatic climax and and is free, driving on the road, things slow down to a regular pace as she stops to get gas.

My works involve the use of interactive devices with sound performances.

Devices often utilize a volume approach to achieve a specific physical erception, while images in the sound performances are generated real-time to materialize corresponding forms. In recent years, I have been committed to the seamless combination of images and sounds created through computer algorithms. In my work, I want to convert the Internet data—the 1s and 0s—into the CD-ROM drives’ physical ejection and retraction, thus making the activity of logging on to the Internet both visible and audible. Audience stands in front of a wall linked by CDROM drives, they get sensation as if placing bodies in the data stream. It gives audience in a grand informational torrent materialized by a collective of actions.

The idea of beauty is widely subjective and controversial in our culture and presents an important topic for discussion. Fashion and cosmetics are utilised everyday by everybody and my work aims to question and consider the obsession behind how we look ourselves and how we look at others. Discovering the way people think and act towards the use of clothes and accessories allows me to filter that through my work and prompts a discussion about our generation and whether or not this idea of beauty is ‘morally suspect’. I can best interpret the way people think about themselves and others in relation to beauty through conversation. Transcripts from interviews, comments found on social media and overheard conversations are then used in my work either literally as text or developed into a visual form.

He paints disruptive grey strips across his clouds and allows coloured surfaces to drip down the canvas in accordance with the laws of gravity.

Vionnet is fascinated by such irritations: interventions that approach and create a non-hierarchical dialogue with the environment.

This dialogue opens up a field of tension, which allows the viewer an intensive glimpse of both these phenomena.

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Gerd G.M. Brockmann

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lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Nicolas Vionnet

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lives and works in GenĂŠve, Switzerland

Lien-Cheng Wang

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lives and works in Taiwan

Inga Lineviciute

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lives and works in London, United Kingdom

Lang Ea

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lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand

Rachel Duffy Byron Rich

Inga Lineviciute

Myriam Dalal

Canada

United Kingdom

France / Lebanon

My work attempts to forge a visual language urging viewers to consider the effect the techno-sphere plays in their day-to-day lives, and demystify the processes by which the techno-sphere is made possible. Through critical engagement of the tools and techniques of biotechnology and communication technology, I strive to empower participants to explore technological potentialities, wresting institutional control over the tools and techniques that define the paradigms. I integrate biological science, ecological study, computer programming, digital media, photography, video, and sculptural elements to convey my conceptual motivations. Integral to my process is producing and utilizing open-source software and biotech to circumvent traditional corporate and institutional technological outlets.

My art is focused on social and cultural issues that I try to express through drawing using traditional techniques and modern methods. I find drawing to be the perfect medium to investigate things that happen around me. In my work I analyse various situations, question the boundaries between private and public behaviour and the bounds of ethics and freedom. I also explore identity, consumerism, traditions and values. I enjoy sketching in public spaces as this is how I collect stories and ideas for drawings and animations.

Working with animation helps me develop narratives and experiment with new ways of drawing.

I like to maintain the sketchy and unfinished aesthetics of the final work.

Refining and redefining memory, death and the notion of material presence through my work, was initially triggered by a personal experience from which I started depicting the anxiety of existing, keeping a trace and the duality of living and dying that human beings still fail to abide to. Similar to Boltanski, I might, after all, be trying to prevent death, while seeking to add to discussions of personal and collective memory within the context of society and its narratives: from the culture of commemoration, the grieve, the aftermath of conflict and the many personal mourning agonies.

Being both emotionally and conceptually engaged in the topic, my work seeks to develop and communicate the experience through various visual perceptions.

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lives and works in Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Byron Rich

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lives and works in Toronto, Canada

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Myriam Dalal lives and works in Paris, France

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Miya Ando lives and works in New York City, USA

Special thanks to Haylee Lenkey, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar, Joshua White, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Sandra Hunter, MyLoan Dinh, John Moran, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Michael Nelson, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Miya Ando, Martin Gantman , Krzysztof Kaczmar and Robyn Ellenbogen.

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Gerd G.M. Brockmann Lives and works in Freiburg, Germany

An artist's statement

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y work researches boundaries between fashion, art and society. In the last years I worked in different participatory projects and countries as contemporary multidisciplinary artist to research with experimental materials like blood, inner tubes and chains, to find new borders between fashion design, art, ephemeral concepts and space, getting a better comprehension of fashion and art as communication concept and I found a new visual language for me.

Since my studies at Istanbul I'm working between two countries and I've got inspired by both worlds to forge a unique connection between apparently contrary features of Turkish and German culture. The dissolution of boundaries, the fusion of both concepts is at the core of my works.

This allows glimpses at a union of opposites. The pieces references duality concepts, combining masculine and feminine elements. Textile structures play with borders and opposites,

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combining art and design. Embedded in space, the disciplines flow into each other and I like if shape, texture and the materials or structures create an expression in space.

For me it's relevant to see the impact of a body in a space. Be aware of textiles as a second skin and the combination of both to create a fugacious sculpture. When can you perceive the body in combination with textiles as a sculpture and where is the border? Has the body to be complete, or is a head enough for an artistic reflection?

I follow those and more questions in my installations and concepts to reach a new reference between design, art and contemporary visual language in fashion.

For this purpose I use textile materials and ephemeral concepts as a base for a bodily transformation and searching for new connections between the disciplines and the space.

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HERE`S STILL LIGHT Photographer: FM BECKER Fotografie 2 FL/Germany /Wood Concept Design & Craft by Korbinian 2Petzinger

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LandEscape meets

Gerd G.M. Brockmann An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

Gerd Brockmann accomplish the difficult task to capture the essence of human experience and immediately conveying it into though-provoking installations: far from being an end in itself, the captivating sociopolitical criticism that marks out many of his cretions, as the interesting Here's still Light, that we'll be discussing in the following pages, urge us to question the reductionist tendencies that pervades Western culture, highlighting paradoxical situations od modernity and always showing us unexpected but ubiquitous points of convergence, in which the viewers are urged to explore the unstability of contemporary age: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to Brockmann's multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Gerd and a warm welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview I would pose you some qustions about your background. You have a solid formal training and you after earning your Bachelor of Arts in Fine Art & visual Media, you eventually refined your education with a Master of Fine Art & visual Media, with a major on Textile & Fashion, that you received from the Flensburg University.

Among the remarkable experience you did over these years, I think that your Erasmus year at the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University in Istanbul has to be mentioned as well: how have these experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? And in particular, do you think that being

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exposed to a wide, international scene may have informed the way you conceive and produce your works today?

Hello LandEscape and thank you for the Invitation. Yes, my Studies at the University of Flensburg gave me some basics about the combination of textile, art and visual media concepts and I learned to use my experiences from the early years.

In the 90´s I finished an apprenticeship in an old tradition house (since 1899), near Hamburg and I learned a lot of things about fabrics, garment, sewing and all that stuff in a really “old-school” way. It was the intense beginning of my new work periods. Between ephemeral works, the body as media, textiles as second skin, nature and environment as artistic space. I was able to use my “old-school” experience as well as my science from the university basics at Flensburg´s art and textile departments, to create new works and my new research projects became a short time later reality. In the same year I realized a small project at Istanbul, after I meet the members of a small independent art space at the Contemporary Istanbul Fair while showing my portfolio to the galleries. And step by step my works got an international touch and I started to work between both countries and I love the cultural exchange, the idea to develop a new visual language for me that includes both cultures.

The hallmark of your approach is a multidisciplinary symbiosys between several visual viewpoints, that you wisely

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condens into a coherent unity, providing a dynamic life to your pieces: before starting to elaborate about your works, I would suggest to our readers to visitI http://artprojectbrockmann.com in order to get a wider idea of your multifaceted artistic production. Have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express the concepts you convey in your works?

In the contemporary art world of the modern era it is essential to enter into a symbiotic relationship with other disciplines to develop yourself as an artist and to create a new visual language. Through the networked world of fine arts mutated into a global activity and in this age of globalization it is essential to get new realms by fusing art, fashion, photography, design and craft, to create new perceptions for the observer. My work is characterized as a new form of public in art and at the same department it offers an insight into the geopolitics of the art system of the 21st century. To survive in today's art market, it is necessary to develop critical tools to allow the viewer a glimpse behind the curtain. The multidisciplinary symbiosis as you call it allows me to develop a broad-based oeuvre as an artist and is actually the only way some of my concepts had been realized.

For Example, THE SUPLENESS PUCK´S‌ The artwork to us viewers, is a different experience to my interaction with the work the artwork itself is performative - it is not really a photograph, nor is it really a sculpture. It is an action, and it is an encounter between two people; one a viewer, and one the performer who is wearing the costume, their body moving slightly with each breath, and shreds of fabric moving with a small breeze. This is such a harmonious amalgamation of costume becoming installation; installation becoming performance; performance becoming

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HERE`S STILL LIGHT Detail Photographer: FM BECKER Fotografie FL/Germany

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sculpture; sculpture becoming a photograph; photograph entering the online sphere. With elements of identity removed; masked faces and wrapped figures, my work seems to have created a repeated motif - a human captured in time and captured (encased, even) within various mediums. It is a tension which exists in the work, and in the characteristics of the mediums used.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from "Here's still Light", an extremely interesting body of works that I have to admit is one of my favourite project of yours. I like the way your careful exploration offers a rigorous but at the same time lively visual translation of the issues that affect contemporary societies: far from being an end in itself, this work reveals the importance of the ongoing social process that leads its creation, and that it's intrinsically connected to the chance of creating an area of intense interplay with the viewers.

While conceiving Art could be considered a purely abstract activity, there is always a way of giving it a permanence that goes beyond the ephemeral nature of the concepts you capture. So I would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indespensable part of a creative process...

Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I believe that one's personal experience accounts for a huge part of any of my works and the mentioned “Here’s Still Light” concept merges to this experience with the experience of all 20 team members to become a great social sculpture. A separation of the creative process of one's own experience, I think indeed possible, for me however, not desirable. In today's society it´s in my opinion very important that new experience spaces and projects for

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KING NOTHING Concept by YILMAZTÜRK&BROCKMANN FASHION DESIGN Draping/Photographer: Nejla Yilmaztürk

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Univocal reference, 38x42, 2010

ONE MOMENT YELLOW SILENCE FASHION DESIGN Draping/Photographer: Nejla YilmaztĂźrk & Aykut YilmaztĂźrk

underestimating groups exists and that we learn to provide and handle socially disadvantaged, to bring them into contact with art and to experience what we can learn from each other. Would I disconnect all from each other, I would deprive myself of my own feelings and the transience, the social or creativity would no longer reach me and I would be

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separated from the social relevance of my work and would be immune to any resonance.

When I was preparing myself for this interview I have got to know that the term social exclusion first originated here in Europe, where we experienced a considerable emphasis on spatial exclusion, that sometimes resembles to a

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form of confinement. The nature of your insightful investigation about marginalization of the elderly people from public sphere reveals an admirable sociopolitical criticism: I have appreciated the way you do not just restrict your analysis to a mere reportage of the situation, but you stimulate us to react to this loss of potential concerning not only wisdom

but also talents that need a whole life to be improved... Although I'm aware that the following assumption might sound a bit naive, I'm convinced that nowadays Art can play an active role not only in exposing and interpreting sociopolitical issues, but also and especially to offer us an unexpected way to solve them... what's your point about this? And in

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particular, how can an artist give a move to the contemporary unstabile society?

In my opinion spatial and social exclusion are only a small part of an ever-accelerating society. We all develop different mechanisms to this new society order to come to the company and manage the age affects us all.

In my time the immortal youth in which I found myself up to my twenties I have recognized this instability of society and was helpless at that time and I could do nothing about it. With the maturity of years and the courage to address people if they would work with me on something together I brought this process in motion. It was possible to actively involve art into sociopolitical criticism. The interactive and participatory has long been a part of the art market ... but this “Here´s Still Light” concept is now to be filled with socio-critical content and to find a platform for this artistic social process was the challenge for me. I was very happy to found my team after a two years research and set it up at the Nexus Gallery in Denmark to give this work the worthy setting. Who will assume responsibility for new and innovative ideas in the world of social exclusion ... unless we artists? How can an artist change something in the modern unstable society? I guess, with new and surprising ideas and the hope to change something, and if it happens only in small… it's a start!

There is a very special synthesis between me and my partner and very talented Fashion Designer Nejla Yilmaztürk. The YILMAZTÜRK & BROCKMANN Concept was born in January 2012. After the work for a Gallery in Istanbul, we decided to work as an artist couple between the border of Fashion Design and Fine Art Concepts.

And I couldn't do without mentioning "Ego Has Fallen", that has provided me of the

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EGO HAS FALLEN Pic by Artist

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GRAND ELIXIR SECRET OF SECRETS…THE URBAN ALCHEMY - Pic by Artist / Model: Korbinian Petzinger

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same sensation I received the first time I had the chance to get to know Boltanski's Exit. Although each of your projects has an autonomous life, there's always seem to be such a channel of communication between your works, that springs from the way you juxtapose ideas and media: as Thomas Demand once said, "nowadays art can no longer rely much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological narrative elements within the medium instead". What's your point about this?

EGO HAS FALLEN has certainly parallels to Boltanski's work “Exit” to pull, since this dimly the likeness of a human being gives and gets a mood of melancholy forth the leaves appear the presence of the past as irretrievably past. The memory work thus becomes a part of the work.

This work contributes similar Boltanski's “Exit” not only a media criticism in itself but also an institutional critique that affects society as a whole.

In my decision-making process of the artistic work and the implementation of ideas, this only partially plays a role. I think about it if I move into a different cultural process, working with a new group, or as usually, if I work between two cultures. Then I try to do research with great respect and it makes me aware of during the process as the context that could affect the visual language to the viewer. The process with my HOMECREW..Like, I call my team of the Here's Still Light project, was like that and that’s why it took two years to complete. Working with the elderly women from the Danish and German culture in considering the old war history required a cautious approach and found expression in the work "War is over".

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Nicolas Vionnet Lives and works in Baselh, Switzerland

An artist's statement

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ionnet’s preferred medium is acrylic on canvas. His chiefly large-scale works play with space and expanse. Although almost always realistic, his paintings have more in common with abstract images than real landscapes. He paints disruptive grey strips across his clouds and allows coloured sur-faces to drip down the canvas in accordance with the laws of gravity.

Vionnet is fascinated by such irritations: interventions that approach and create a non-hierarchical dialogue with the environ-ment. This dialogue opens up a field of tension, which allows the viewer an intensi-ve glimpse of both these phenomena.

Vionnet uses the same approach and the same strategy for his installations. Irritation and integration. A fundamental confrontation with the history of a place leads to a subtler and more precise intervention of the object. Take for

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example his man-made grass island at the Weimarhallen Park (Weimar, GER), which ironically inten-sified the park’s own artificiality.

In ‘Close the Gap’ (Leipzig, GER) he bridged the space between an old-town row of houses with a printed canvas image of the now much frowned upon prefabricated buil-ding. A reference to changes in time and aesthetics.

Nicolas Vionnet lives and works in the Zuricharea. He graduated from the Hochschule fürGestaltung und Kunst Basel. He graduated in2009 from the Bauhaus-Universität Weimarwith a Master of Fine Arts degree after studyingon the university’s Public Art and New ArtisticStrategies programme.

Vionnet has partici-pated in various exhibitions at home and abroadsince 1999, including at the Kunsthalle Basel,the Neues Museum Weimar (Gallery marke.6)and the III Moscow International Biennale forYoung Art.

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LandEscape meets

Nicolas Vionnet An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Multidisciplinary artist Nicolas Vionnet's work explores the relationship between the Self and the collective consciousness, highlighting the unstable relation between these apparently opposite aspects. In his works that we'll be discussing in the following pages, he unveils the connections between our perceptual process and the elusive nature of our bodies' physicality yo accomplish the difficult task of drawing the viewers into a multilayered experience in which they are urged to rethink about the stages of the soul, spirit and body from before birth to afterlife. One of the most convincing aspect of Vionnet's approach is the way it condenses the permanent flow of associations in the realm of memory and experience: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating artistic production.

Hello Nicolas, and a warm welcome to LandEscape To start this interview would you like to tell us something about your background? Are there any particular experiences that have impacted on the way you currently produce your artworks?

I grew up in the region of Basel, Switzerland, and have completed my education at the University of Art and Design Basel and at the Bauhaus-University Weimar. During the first few years I have

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been mainly dealing with painting. Decisive for my current artistic practice was my twoyear stay in Weimar, where I graduated from the Public Art and New Artistic Strategy master’s program.

During this time I was given the chance to realize my first major interventions in public space. It was an exciting and very intense time where I mainly learned to perceive my environment in a completely different way, to react and to undertake artistic interventions.

Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up for making your artworks? In particular, what technical aspects do you mainly focus on your work? And how much preparation and time do you put in before and during the process of creating a piece?

The principal approach in nearly all projects is quite similar, but the final work can differ greatly. In the context of an exhibition I often get a proposed specific place or I have the freedom to choose from a range of different locations in public space.

My process usually begins with photo tours and walks where I am trying to become familiar with a place. Important questions for me are: how do the citizens use the place, what is its function and what role does it take in everyday life? Are there any

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special circumstances or other conspicuous issues? In the next stage I start an exhaustive research, go to the library or the city archive and try to clarify the historical background of the site. During this period I normally have the first clear ideas and I start to do visualizations with Photoshop. If an idea is strong enough and can survive for several days or weeks, I move to the final phase where I start to test and to work with the needed material to finally realize the work.

Now let's focus on your art production: we would start from A New Found Glory and Men after work, one of your earlier pieces that our readers have already started to admire in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest to our readers to visit your website directly at http://www.nicolasvionnet.ch in order to get a wider idea of your artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of these interesting projects?

What was your initial inspiration?

The first project you mentioned, A New Found Glory, was realized together with my friend Wouter Sibum from Rotterdam.

We both graduated from the Public Art and New Artistic Strategies program in Weimar and since then, often working together as a duo. For example we realized the work Colour me surprised as part of the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art in 2012.

A New Found Glory was conceived one year later in a closed public toilet known as the M¸llloch (litter-hole) next to the Herdbr¸cke at the Donau in Ulm. For years, this non-place is closed off for the public. It gathers more and more garbage and is overgrown by weeds and wild flowers over the years. We were looking for a funny

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response to the still unresolved problem and decided to install a fountain in the middle of the forbidden zone. A fountain that was only just visible for the passersby, but once looked into the hole reveals to be filling the space completely. Thus, not only surprising the passersby - at the same time also a touch of festivity and glory returned to the old city wall in Ulm. The second work, Men after work, was a minimal intervention that I have realized in the project room of WIDMER + THEODORIDIS contemporary in Zurich. The room consisted of a long, dark passage, which finally ended in a courtyard in the heart of the old town of Zurich. On the one hand, I was referring on the exhibition title Men at work. On the other hand, the small but noticeable road construction warning light has flashed in unfamiliar red light through this dark alley and had a magnetic effect on passersby. I have to underline that we only know road construction warning lights with yellow appearance in Switzerland. Therefore the red light was irritating and many of the passers-by saw it more like an indication of a red light bar.

Furthermore I found the idea of a road construction warning light very charming and narrative: it is clocking-off time; the light is set to red. Come on in!

One of the features that has mostly impacted on me of Jacuzzi, is the way you are effectively capable of recontextualizing the idea of the environment we live in, which is far from being just the background of our existence: you Art in a certain sense forces the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive environment... so I would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

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It is indeed the case that my work tries to sensitize the people for their immediate environment. My works are often restrained, unobtrusive and directly embedded in the landscape – my work would not be readable without a specific surrounding. So it is always about this dialogue, the positioning, interaction and what can come out of these situations. This forces the viewer to perceive the environment from a new perspective.

Unimportant and inconspicuous becomes suddenly important and intrusive.

Now to your question: Our experiences shape us throughout life. I see this like a simple classical conditioning. Our experiences are a key factor of how we perceive our world and how we behave in certain situations. You thus always have an impact, even if we are not always aware. In this sense, I don’t think that a creative process can be really disconnected from experience.

Multidisciplinary is a recurrent feature of your artistic production and I have appreciated the effective synergy that you create between different materials, as in the stimulating Extent of reflection: while crossing the borders of different techniques have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

I must admit in all honesty: Yes, I actually work with synergies, but it was never intended to do so. I very often rely on my gut instinct and just try to bring the work to a coherent state.

One advantage of your mentioned interdisciplinary approach is that a work, through the interaction of different techniques, automatically focuses on several aspects and thus can be read on

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several levels. However, I am not consciously looking for these multiple layers.

In 2011, I have realized the installation Out of sight, out of mind in a former Stasi prison in Chemnitz, Germany. The work consisted of a huge mountain of shredded paper, with which I have filled a former interstitial space knee-high. As additional audio-element there were hectic noises of steps and shredding machines. The whole work addressed the last days of the Stasi shortly before the fall oft he wall in 1989.

The Stasi tried to destroy as many secret documents as possible. Even today, there are thousands of bags with shredded paper remnants that are now reassembled laboriously by hand. A hilarious story. In this sense you can see my work as a staging of the last hectic hours of the Stasi in 1989.

Another interesting work of yours that have particularly impressed me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Warum Denken traurig macht, and which is a clear example of what you have once defined as "nonhierarchical dialogue with the environment". By the way, although I'm aware that this might sound a bit naif, I can recognize such a socio political aim in your Art: a constant stimulation that we absolutely need to get a point of balance that might give us the chance of re-interpreting the world we live in... and our lives, indeed...

My work often focuses on the topics of integration and irritation. In other words, I'm trying to integrate something new into the existing environment and thus to irritate at the same time. However, the confusion should be subtle. The phrase "nonhierarchical dialogue with the environment" describes my conviction that the artwork itself may never be dominant.

Indeed, there should be no hierarchy.

Ideally, there is a balance between work and environment. This balance allows the

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viewer to perceive both components simultaneously.

The installation Warum Denken traurig macht in my view is an oddity among my works. This project was shown in the socalled art box, a typical white cube in the shape of a container that is shown in different locations in the city of Uster. Due to the physical presence oft the box, there was already an existing hierarchy, which I could not prevent. However, I wanted to follow a particular path. Many artists before me have used the box a simple white cube to showcase their existing works. In no case I wanted to do the same. I have decided to give the box a new residential function and to turn it into a retirement home. The whole room was papered, the walls were decorated with old family photos and at the door there was a cloak hanging. In between, the phone rang and you could hear the radio.

The people have actually thought that the box is inhabited.

By the way: the work's title referred to the same-named book from Georges Steiner, an American literary critic, essayist and philosopher During these years your works have been exhibited in several important occasions, both in Switzerland, where you are currently based, and abroad: and I think it's important to remark that you took part to the III Moscow International Biennale for Young Art... It goes without saying that feedbacks and especially awards are capable of supporting an artist: I was just wondering if an award -or just the expectation of positive feedback- could even influence the process of an artist...

By the way, how much important is for you the feedback of your audience? I sometimes wonder if it could ever exist a genuine relationship between business and Art...

Absolutely. An artist needs an audience; I

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think that's probably one of the most important things. I want that my work can be seen! Art is destined to be shared! It is not that much important to me that I can sell my work, however, I am more interested to exhibit my work in a professional context and on a regular basis.

Sales may of course also have a negative influence on the artist's way of working.

Many artists argue that they are completely independent - I see that as utterly false.

Let's be honest: If you feel a large interest and for example you can sell a complete series of works at once, there is a high probability that you go back to your studio and start working on similar pieces again. I think this is quite normal.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Nicolas. My last question deals with your future plans: what's next for you? Anything coming up for you professionally that you would like readers to be aware of?

I would like to thank you for your interest.

My work is currently shown at several locations. At the Kulturort Galerie Weiertal (Winterthur, ending on September 7,2014) I present two installation works in a magnificent park (one of the works is the above mentioned Jacuzzi). Furthermore I participate in a group show entitled Small Works at Trestle Gallery (Brooklyn, New York, July 18 – August 22, 2014). There will be a group show entitled Trovato, non veduto at Ausstellungsraum Klingental (Basel, November 1 – 16, 2014). Moreover I am very excited to do another project together with Wouter Sibum (Rotterdam). We will present a major intervention in the sea as part oft he 4th Biennial Aarhus exhibit called Sculpture by the sea. This show will start in June 2016. You are cordially invited to visit my website www.nicolasvionnet.ch, where you can find more information and all exhibition dates.

Movement Computing, 2015 Three channel projection, Stereo speaker

Lien-Cheng Wang Taiwan, is well-known as consumer electronic industry, where numerous electronic products are produced and discarded, older models are replaced by newer models.

I collected hundreds of scraped and old CD-ROM drives which were originally connected with computers. They are actually functional and usable. But people throw them out because a newer generation model is published in the market.

I used a different method with nutrients from the information on the internet, brought CD-ROM drives back to live. The Internet, the blood of my work, is itself a stream from which data, consisting of 0’sand 1’s, are put in(uploaded) and taken out (downloaded; accessed).

Likewise, data in a CD-ROM can be put in(burned) or taken out (read). In my work, I want to convert the Internet data—the 1s and 0s—into the CD-ROM drives’ physical ejection and retraction, thus making the activity of logging on to the Internet both visible and audible. Audience stands in front of a wall linked by CD-ROM drives, they get sensation as if placing bodies in the data stream. Body receives outcomes and incomes precisely from the inorganic movement of the previously discarded CD-ROM drives. It gives audience in a grand informational torrent materialized by a collective of actions. The mechanic movement shall create a space with undefined, moving, developing and “massaging” mind and body all at the same time.

Lien-Cheng Wang, new media artist residences at Taipei, Taiwan, obtained B.S. in computer science and M.F.A. in Art and Technology at Taipei University of Arts. His work involves with interactive devices and realtime sound performance. He uses open source to create installation arts and audio-visual real-time performance.

The Works are committed to seamless combination of images and sounds created by computer algorithm as well as human perception with universe and nature. He often utilizes a volume of installed approach to achieve a specific physical perception.

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Lien-Cheng Wang Lives and works in Dallas, USA

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator

artworks? In particular, how does your Taiwanese cultural substratum inform the way you realte yourself to art making?

and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

Highly stimulating in its communicative concreteness, Regeneration Movement is an extremely interesting project by Taiwan based multidisciplinary artist LienCheng Wang. His work reject any conventional classification and condenses a stimulating symbiosis between Art and Technology to provide the viewers with an immersive and multilayered experience. One of the most convincing aspects of Wang's practice is his successful attempt to go beyond the dichotomy between artist and spectatorship, urging them to evolve to conscious and active participants. We are very pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating artistic production.

Hello Lien-Cheng and a warm welcome to LandEscape. We would start this interview posing you some questions about your background. You have a solid formal training: you hold a B.F.A. in Computer Science and Information Engineering and you are currently studying at the Graduate Institute of Art and Technology, in Taipei: how do these experiences influence the way you conceive and produce your

I am from computer engineering background, it gave me a good foundation in using technological materials. My works are also very related with digitalization and technological art.

It must be said Taiwan's culture deeply influenced my creation although I am used to use a smart-hidden way to package it and cover it well. People would not notice it at very first sight. For example, in my work "Electric Position", the main concept is from electric fly swatter and mosquitoes.

These two elements are mostly existed in low latitude country and lived in torrid zone; in "Regeneration movement", there are many CD-ROM drivers which generated by Taiwan in the past 10 years. I tried to discuss issues of globalization and how technology bring to our daily life in using taiwanese point of view.

You are a versatile artist your experimental practice encapsulates several techniques, involving a stimulating use of interactive devices with sound performances: your practice reveals an incessant search of an organic symbiosis between a variety of

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Electric Position, 2008 Refit electric shock, Refit electric mosquito zapper, Relay, Ultrasonic sensor

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viewpoints. The results convey together a coherent sense of unity, that rejects any conventional classification: so before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://soulblighter0122.blogspot.it in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your usual process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

First of all, thanks for the compliment. I am for sure to focus on the uniqueness of combination between formality and concept. It is very important for me. In my work, the audience participation is essential. There are less interaction with the audience in the traditional arts whereas I use modern technology to express my artistic concept.

For this special issue of ARTiculAction we have selected Regeneration Movement, a project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article.

What has at once caught our attention of this project is the way your successful attempt estabish direct reations with the viewers when they get sensation as if placing bodies in the data stream: when walking our readers through the genesis of Regeneration Movement we would ask you what are your main sources of inspiration and what is your usual process to develope the ideas you explore.

The inspiration came from one day, my desktop CD-ROM drive was ejected and

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restored automatically without any warning. In such an orderly world we live, it is as if a tiny abnormal matter that could trigger a chain reaction, where things would turn strange one by one. I found this abnormality is interesting and wanted to enlarge it to a wall landscape. In the process of collecting scraped CD-ROM drives, which was relatively accessible for me because Taiwan is an electric products kingdom where numerous IT products manufactured and discarded every day, I realized those products I collected were still usable. We throw them away because new models comes to replace. Therefore, I started to build this work and made scraped CD-ROMs brought them back to live.

Your works almost always offer fruible set of elements that trigger the viewers' primordial parameters concerning our relation with physicality and with everyday life, inviting us to a multilayered experience. So we would like to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

No, I don’t think so. I consider personal experiences produce the process of creation. If a person has no experience of life, he/she cannot connect to any creation.

If I would not live in Taiwan, I could not create works such as ”Regeneration movement", and "Parallel Cities” etc.

Another interesting work of yours that has particularly impressed us and on which we would like to spend some words is Computed Scenery, that questions impact of cutting edge techniques in our

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Parallel Cities, 2014 Laser, Diffractive optical element, Magnifier, Mirror, Metal structure 22

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unstable and ever changing contemporary age. The impetuous way modern technology has nowadays came out on the top has dramatically revolutionized the concept of Art: in a certain sense, we are forced to rethink about the intimate aspect of the materiality of an artwork itself, since just few years ago it was a tactile materialization of an idea. We are sort of convinced that new media will definitely fill the apparent dichotomy between art and technology and we will dare to say that Art and Technology are going to assimilate one to each other... what's your point about this?

Since the computer was invented, more and more digitalization came into our life as well as into art industry. People use technology to help their creation. For instance, nowadays we can use projector as assistant to complete the large mural. I consider art and technology will NOT combine to assimilate one. But I think the direction of both will become the process of approach as close as possible. It just like digital and life, they are two different words.

Your works could be considered multisensorial biographies that univeil the aestethic consequences of a combination between sound and light exploring unexpected aspects of the functionality of language on the aesthetic level: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

In my point of view, contemporary art is like a transition hub (like train station and airport), an interface of communication

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Unbreakable City 2014, Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp, Smart Film, Stereo sound, single-frequency projection, New

and exchange, strings different location, race, occupation and generation etc. and put them into conversation.

Interactive art uses the method of technology to reduce the threshold and distance between audience and the artwork.

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You regularly take part in performances and art projects in public space, as you interesting performative piece entitled The Displacement: your practice provides the viewers with an intense, immersive experience: how do

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Media Art

you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience and how much importance has improvisation in your process?

I think display art in public space is very essential because it represents a process of communication with the people. As I mentioned before, immersive way is a form of communication.

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The improvisation in my performance is very critical, it reflects a direct relationship with the audience, make audience easy accessible.

Wave Phenomena provokes direct relations in the viewers and accomplishes the difficult task of going beyond the surface of communication.

We find this aspect particularly interesting since it is probabily the only way to accomplish the vital restoration you pursued in this work, concerning both the individuals and thier place in our ever changing societies: what kind of reactions did you expect to provoke in the viewers?

"Wave Phenomena" discusses a relationship between light, time and wave. It is a site specific artwork because there was a transparent celling at exhibition space. Natural sunlight shine through the space and through the installation. When audiences walk in the installation, the floor switch is sensed and installation be activated.

The material "smart films" becomes transparent, people would feel like walk under the water, the ripples from light would spill from above. I expect the viewers to feel nature, technology and aesthetic unify in this installation.

Over these years you works have been exhibited in several occasions, including your recent participations at OSTRALE´O16 in Dresden and your performance at the CONCIERTOS AUDIOVISUALES MADATAC. Your practice is strictly connected to the chance of establishing a direct involvement with the viewers, who are

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urged to evolve from a mere spectatorship to conscious participants on an intellectual level, so before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

Acceptance of the audience is important for me, but not the most. It’s due to I think that contemporary art often has a problem and people usually tell me: they do not understand. I intend to break this line, then establish a bridge of communication with the audience. I use Mandarin and English to express my concept, never less to say, computer language as well.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lien-Cheng.

Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving?

I am currently developing a work called "Reading Project.” It is about 23 automatic machines which are flipping book. The average student number of primary school class in Taiwan is 23.

The work will play out the voice reading

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

Linear, 2014 Single-channel projection, Stereo electric sound, Real-time computer audio-visual performance

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My art is focused on social and cultural issues that I try to express through drawing using traditional techniques and modern methods. I find drawing to be the perfect medium to investigate things that happen around me. In my work I analyse various situations, question the boundaries between private and public behaviour and the bounds of ethics and freedom. I also explore identity, consumerism, traditions and values.

I enjoy sketching in public spaces as this is how I collect stories and ideas for drawings and Lives and works in Dallas, USA animations. Working with animation helps me develop narratives and experiment with new ways of drawing. I like to maintain the sketchy and unfinished aesthetics of the final work. Using a variety of tools, I draw carefully in order to accomplish the fragility of movement. I investigate the motion of the line and construct compositions concerning the subject matter. I mainly use pencil, watercolour and ink to capture the innate curiosities and enchantments of the everyday, examine people's reactions to the unexpected. I try to catch certain moments of common situations and An artist'sexamine statement critically the effects of consumerism and social displacement upon how people behave in public.

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hen I was four years old, I had a near death experience while having an open heart surgery.

My heart stopped beating, my body temperature went low, a heart-lung machine kept me alive. Coming back from that threshold, I knew that opposites are bound together and that I encompass both. It left me fascinated with edges and yearning for meaning. My works are born from that same simultaneous sense of vertigo and stability.

(“Illusions & Reality”, 2010-13). Through intricate drawings and installations I struggle to weave together the past, present and future. Recently I’m fascinated with transformation (“Release”, 2014-15). The Sisyphean process evolved to a new set of rules, which dictates different materials, gestures and speed. The new paintings are large and expressive, made in one continuous session, like an intense ritual.

I see my studio as a cross between a womb and a lab. My practice is a tool for They deal with a dichotomous - the understanding myself as well as the world realization that one reality can reflect of phenomena around me. My goal is to many and there is no one definition. The generate a change that shapes truth is endlessly evolving and expanding. perspectives and actions, thus enabling I Adopting try and reconcile conflicts and an observational approach, characters in my work become unbelievable, but remain for something new to occur - symbolically, contradictions beauty that personal. Thesuch mainasattention has to be drawn to the motion of the situation and the story. conceptually and tangibly. I have a encompasses crudeness, weakness as a distinct feeling that there is something I use multiple media as drawing, painting, printmaking, animation and installation to source of strength and such disillusionment beyond me, a life force, which Ipresent can’t put deconstruct everyday life and weave together lost narratives, spaces where the that feeds innocence. The early works into words but I can channel into art. collapses and images of strangers and their actions.

I use drawings to create wall (“Red Heart”, 2007-09) are naïve installations, where each drawingsubtle could be read individually, but all together they function drawings of bodies and situations, as a map, they are all related and form a comic like narrative. My animations tell a story and yet disturbing. Minimalist figures floating portray experiences yet I want to show them as drawings. This is whyInga theyLineviciute are projected in in white space. With time, layers appear order to make them more dynamic and to create an illusion of a moving drawing. I like to show all of my work as an installation, using white walls, images without frames or any hard materials. It has to be simple and delicate.

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Inga Lineviciute An interview by Steve J. Ross, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

Inga Lineviciute's work rejects any conventional classification and establishes a consistent synergy between traditional techniques and contemporary sensitiveness to extract a compelling narrative out of a variety of social issues that affects our unstable age. In her hybrid installation Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she walks the viewers on the thin line that marks the boundary between Tradition and Contemporariness, to explore the notions of inner conflicts, lack of communication and self-control, drawing the viewers into an area in which the perceptual dimension and subconscious sphere merges together into coherent unity. One of the most convincing aspects of Lineviciute's work is her successful attempt to draw the viewer's attention to real situations in which we all might take part and reflect the problems of current society, ethics and appropriate behaviour: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Inga, and a warm welcome to ARTiculAction. We would start this interview posing you some questions about your background: you have a solid formal training and you hold a BA(hons) of Fine Arts that you received

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from the University of Central Lancashire. How has this experience influenced your evolution as an artist?

And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you deal with the aesthetic problem in general?

I have both traditional and contemporary art education. Before I entered BA, I studied traditional arts and crafts at Kaunas Art Gymnasium in Lithuania, and dreamt of becoming a painter. Unfortunately I wasn't accepted to BA Painting course in Lithuania, so I decided to look for an art course abroad.

Studying in a small town, in North West England has changed my point of view and conception of what art is. The system was unusual and new to me, so it took me some time to understand that I am here not just to learn and perfect skills, but to be an artist from the beginning. And make something new, contemporary.

Thanks to university tutors, staff and students, they demolished my old school thinking and led on the right path.

Moving abroad was exciting yet very difficult to get along people, places. I was home-sick and felt lonely most of the time. I started making drawings and illustrating the literal meaning of some lithuanian idioms together with what I am facing. Changing environments made me an observer and to see

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differences between various cultures.

Depends on what project I am working with and where it is based on, it alters my work aesthetics, although I tend to keep the drawing traditional, yet simple.

You are a versatile artist and your media ranges from drawing, painting and printmaking to animation and installation, showing an organic synergy between a variety of expressive capabilities. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://ingacontemporary.eu in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

I always thought that to be a great artist you have to be experimental and research a lot in order to find the best way, material and presentation for your artwork. This is why I use more than just one medium. Also, every project needs its way to be shown, thou it always starts from the drawing. I like to explore ways and analyse every subject of my project individually, so I can develop it and fulfil my visions.

When I get asked what I do, I answer that I draw: it is always a drawing nonetheless in which media the work is represented.

I knew that I have to be versatile and gain a variety of skills since I was attending school in Lithuania, but later I focused on drawing and my goal was to keep it dominating.

The art I make can never be the same: with every new project I choose different

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papers, colours and I have to work on finding an applicable stylistic.

For this special issue of ARTiculAction we have selected Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, a stimulating project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of your inquiry into the themes of inner conflicts, lack of communication and self-control is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of creating a channel of communication between the conscious sphere and the subconscious sphere. When walking our readers through the genesis of Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight, would you shed a light about the role of metaphors in your process?

Whenever I am out in public, I analyse my surroundings: I can follow people or watch them eating in a cafĂŠ, or listen them talking.

Sometimes I am fortunate to experience and be a part of unusual situation, often I take photographs or sketch, so I can use it as a reference when I get an idea. Therefore, I create or interpret various situations using mostly folklore or mythological motives.

When I was a kid, I loved reading tales and myths, and until now I keep researching and reading about traditions, values and believes while people were worshipping gods.

By knowledge of this, my mind always brings up associations of experienced actions and I start to create my own story, which would communicate and question certain behaviour whether it's a lack of dignity or pure freedom.

Good morning, good afternoon, goodnight

is a project consisting of short animated stories based on social etiquette in public and with a use of metaphors I could quickly narrate a story. Moreover, such symbolism and comparisons helped to execute some

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actions and once it is surreal, later it becomes real.

When raising the question of who is responsible for the conflict and incidents in public, you seem to address the viewers to get free of the

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costraints that affect contemporary unstable societies. Many artists from the contemporary scene, as Judy Chicago or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to include socio-political criticism in their works. It is not unusual that an artist, rather than urging the viewer to take a personal

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position on a subject, tries to convey his personal take about the major issues that affect contemporary age. Do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach? Do you feel that it’s your responsibility as an artist to teach and raise awareness of

certain issues?

With my work I am seeking to maintain a neutral approach, because I don't feel like I can be judging while I am a part of this contemporary society. It feels unfair to dictate my views or reveal my posi-

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tion, as I aim my work to stay hypothetical and in some cases educational. I am influenced by Dan Perjovschi, whose work is bold and simple, in addition to, talks to an audience about current issues both in political world and modern culture. I adore his straightforwardness and sense of humor, for which I am aiming too, however I would like my works to be seen as didactic rather than political art.

As an artist I feel like I have to express my thoughts and concern, drawing a viewers' attention to look at themselves before judging somebody else.

Another interesting work of yours that has particularly impacted on us and on which we would like to spend some words is entitled Festive night: this body of works explores a variety situations that occur in various public places at night. A distinctive mark of the way it constructs a concrete aesthetic from experience and memories and symbols, working on both subconscious and conscious level.

Moreover, you once remarked that animations tell a story and portray experiences yet you want to show them as drawings: so we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion, personal experience is absolutely indispensable as part of the creative process? Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

I think, for the artist personal experience is unneseccary, on the other hand before I begin something I always refresh my memories, check my notes, drawings or photographs. I often get an idea or a vision, because I just recently saw or experienced, but during development it shifts and becomes either a new or an improved form. Nonetheless, in a creative process I focus on and look for ways how my work

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would communicate within audience, and how without words I can deliver a message.

Festive night it was one of my experiments, where I was aiming for a diverse effect. I wasn't using materials I accidentally found or were a part of any incidents, I was exploring and wanted the best result.

In my opinion, creative process often is spontaneous, unrestricted and uncontrolled; it could be easily separated from direct experience. I see it as a separate and independent case.

Festive night also seems to remove any historic gaze from the reality you refer to, inducing the viewers to rethink the notion of time in such a static way. At the same time, the fruible set of elements you draw from universal imagery trigger the viewers' primordial parameters concerning our relation with physicality: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

Art can be a powerful form to deliver a message, it was always a reflection of the world and it portrays current events, including politics, culture, social changes and many more. In my opinion, art is the only form where you can raise awareness or criticise untrusted actions in the contemporary age.

However, it is often an individual opinion, seeking for a support and to be acknowledged.

Your pieces encapsulate both traditional techniques and modern methods you merge together to create a coherent unity, that rejects any conventional classification and that invites the viewer to explore the liminal area between Tradition and a vivacious contemporary approach. What is in your opinoin the relationship between Tradition

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ad Contemporariness? Do you think there's a contrast or do you rather think that Contemporariness could be considered an evolutive stage of Tradition?

I think contemporariness cannot survive without tradition: it is either a foundation or inspiration. There were always rules and methods which never changed, but kept evolving. Although, traditional art it is more about skills, beauty and it is more understandable to an audience, whereas contemporary art is more about a concept: raising questions and reflecting politics, mass culture, technology and about artist's individuality and expression. In my opinion, combining both can create successful and powerful image. Contemporariness does not necessary mean it has to be something current, whatsoever was made today might be considered as tradition after a period of time.

All in all, there are few things I must mention: originality, quality, inventiveness and a message are keys to a successful artwork.

Your successful attempt to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols creates a compelling non linear narrative that, walking the thin line between conceptual and literal meanings, establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it?

And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?

Nowadays art can be anything: there are

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no rules or boundaries, but methods or processes which are fashionable and dominating. There is a lot of good art and as much as of bad art, by reason of that nobody can ever rely on something.

Art is diverse and in the end, the success depends only if an audience understands it.

I equally spend time on an idea and on the medium; both aspects are very important and one without another cannot exist. Some works consist of more mythological symbols, some only presented through metaphors, but without it my work wouldn't work. It is crucial. Medium helps me to execute an idea.

Over these years you works have been exhibited in several occasions: you participated to 7th edition of Incubarte in Valencia and you recently had the solo Carnival, A Small View, Liverpool.

Your work is strictly connected to the chance of establishing a direct involvement with the viewers, who are called to evolve from a mere spectatorship to conscious participants on an intellectual level, so before leaving this conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I make art not for myself, I would like people to pay an attention and have an opinion about it. I don't expect to receive positive or negative feedback, thou it is important, yet I want spectators to be in my place for a moment and

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see the world the way I do.

Before I begin to work, I always sketch and analyse the idea, as well as I am looking for ways how to make my work engage with an audience and convey the meaning of it.

During the process of my work I look into and analyse all the details, and I have to be selective of elements that could interact. In some cases, my work can be controversial, but it is a play – I hyperbolize my story, so I can attract viewer's attention.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Inga. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects.

How do you see your work evolving?

First of all, I would like to thank the ArticulAction team on selecting me: it is a pleasure to be a part of this edition and talk about my work.

After I completed Carnival, I have moved to Copenhagen, where I am still adopting myself. In meantime, I have collected stories and prepared scripts for my animations, and I am exploring ways of developing it. I would like my work to be more engaging or interactive, thus I have to learn new techniques in order to make my project work.

Although I recently collaborated with Kyle Nathan Brown and we are working on our upcoming exhibition, which is at early stages at the moment.

An interview by Steve J. Ross, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@europe.com

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L ang Ea Lives and works in Auckland, New Zealand

An artist's statement

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y works are a compilation of emotional narratives, fuelled by personal experience of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime, interwoven with the lingering resonances of historical trauma, where the burden of history and memory combine to enhance my vision.

My dramatic, illustrative, thoughtful images and references evolve from my personal narrative, collective memory, literature, and mass media to expose what is lingering in my subconscious associated with a childhood amid war. I create imageries which causes viewers to engage, not always comfortably, although providing insight into my

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concepts and vision, while stimulating the social conscience.

In my recent art works, I take the Comics in art inspired by the British and American Pop Art and the world of speech balloons, I process, deconstruct, and reassemble in a new shape to create sculptures and space-encompassing sculpture installations. In so doing, the work do not reproduce a supposedly naive and cheerful surface, it is a critical investigation of aesthetic and social phenomena, disturbing and subversive-political allusion frequently expressing wittiness, humour, and biting irony.

Lang Ea

'KA -BOOM!' (2016) sculpture installation (site specific)- 600+ red wool pom poms, within a 15m radius Sculpture at scenic world 2016, Blue Mountains/Sydney, Australia (photo courtesy of Gary.P.Hayes)

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Lang Ea An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@artlover.com landescape@europe.com

Multidisciplinary artist Lang Ea's work explores a variety of issues that affects our unstable contemporary age, drawing inspiration from her Cambodian origins. As she remarked once, her works are commentaries on politics, consumer culture and the process of social perception that explore my interest in the personal yet universal challenges of war. In her installation Ka -Boom!(2016) that we'll be discussing in the following pages she draws the viewers through a multilayered experience to establish a channel of communication between the subconscious sphere and perceptual reality. One of the most convincing aspects of Ea's approach is the way it accomplishes to create an unconventional and engaging narrative: we are really pleased to introduce our readers to her stimulating artistic production.

Hello Lang and a warm welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and after your

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studies in Architecture and Design, you nurtured your education with a Bachelor of Design that you received from the Victoria University, in Wellington, New Zealand: how do these experiences influence your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your cultural substratum due to your Cambodian origins inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

As an emigrant to a new country, I was advised not to attend Art school as it was an uncertain career path. I was an all rounder student, but it was obvious from the start that my talent shines in art. After my studies, I worked in the fashion industry, but I would come home wanting to paint or sculpt. During the following years I started a series of 12 paintings called ‘The Red cross series’ (1998-2000). I believe this series had come straight from my subconscious as I was only 6 months old when my recently wedded parents were forced to the Khmer Rouge work camps and I have no conscious memories of my early childhood. Half way through the series I was curious and decided to make my first visit back to Cambodia in 1999, but found that I still have no memory

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connecting me to the country, people or the advents during my early childhood with the Pol Pot’s regime.

Perhaps that is why the 12 paintings are full of symbolism, rather then realistic representations. The paintings consist of two main characters –the butterfly and the mosquito, with the Red Cross symbol prominent in every painting. ‘The Red cross series’ paved the direction of my work to date, unleashing my subconscious, searching for truth and meaning.

Your approach coherently combines everyday materials including resin, polystyrene, glass, concrete, ceramic and wool to convey an effective emotional narrative: the results convey together a coherent and consistent sense of harmony and unity. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.langeagallery.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have ever happened to realize that such approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

I use different techniques from painting to sculpture and installation only as a vessel to express and explore my concepts. I would experiment with what ever medium necessary to best express and convey the ideas I am exploring, however the 'KA -BOOM!' (2016) -sculpture installation (site specific)- 600+

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Lang Ea

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red wool pom poms, within a 15m radius. Sculpture at scenic world 2016, Blue Mountains/Sydney, Australia, photo courtesy of Gary.P.Hayes

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'KA -BOOM!' (2016) -sculpture installation (site specific)- 600+red wool pom poms, within a 15m radius. Sculpture at scenic world 2

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subject remains the same, which is why there is a coherent or consistency within all of my work even though I have used and combined a different approach in each art work.

For this special edition of ARTiculAction we have selected Ka -Boom! an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. This installation was partly prompted from beneath the cloud, one of your previous painting series. What has at once caught our attention of this work is the way it challenges the viewers' perceptual parameters stimulating the social conscience and urging us to rethink and sometimes even subvert the way we relate ourselves to such ubiquitous concepts: while walking our readers through the genesis of Ka -Boom!, would you shed light on the role of memory in your process?

You could say that my subconscious memory have subverted my direction and concept of all my art work.

Ka –Boom! was to challenge the viewer‘s perception and perspective of an actual KA –BOOM!, The red wool Pom Poms has been used for aesthetic purpose, as well as a metaphor for all the tragedies that a KA –BOOM! would cause.

I have found after exhibiting the work, that the red pom pom wools are not so obscure in its relation to war, universally known as the ‘pom-pom ‘, was a 40-millimetre (1.6 in) British 016, Blue Mountains/Sydney, Australia, photo courtesy of Gary.P.Hayes

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auto cannon, used famously as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy. The name came from the sound that the original models make when firing.

Ka -Boom! is a vehicle for feeling and references Pop art and provides the viewers with an intense, immersive experience: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space? In particular, how much do you consider the immersive nature of the viewing experience and how importance has improvisation in your process?

It is crucial that the audience is drawn to or evoke by the work, creating a dialogue by immersing them aesthetically, emotionally and informatively, I think Art works which questions the human narrative needs to be within the public sphere. The improvisation process is more apparent within a public space, it’s a constant problem solving exercise, as the audience are more diverse compared to exhibiting within an art gallery.

Drawing from highly symbolic and evocative elements from contemporary imagery, Ka -Boom!

Provokes direct relations in the viewers and accomplishes the difficult task of going beyond the surface of communication. We find this aspect particularly interesting: what kind of reactions did you expect to provoke in the viewers?

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A successful Art work needs to firstly appeal to the eyes of the viewer, this will drew them into the work, then when they read the title ‘ Ka Boom! ’ they smile ‘…does the work mean something more or should I just enjoy its beauty and awesomeness ’ The work can be enjoyed from many levels I have seen children getting excited by the colour and scale of the work, perhaps it’s like entering some fantasy world for them. Then the parents would play along with their children on this level and choose not to entertain the serious side of the work.

For me this is very interesting as that is exactly what we are doing, we have an attitude that as long as it’s not effecting us personally we can choose to ignore it.

Acting innocent like children, and blame others who have caused the tragedy and destruction. I take the view that we are all to blame, peace will only come if everyone of us starts listening to each other so that we may learn to understand each other’s ideas and differences and perhaps stop our fears from festering into war.

Your works could be considered multisensorial biographies that unveil the aesthetic consequences of a combination between tactile, concrete reality and the evocative power conveyed by symbols that lead you to explore unexpected aspects of the functionality of language on the aesthetic level: as Gerhard Richter

' Listen ' 2014 -sculpture installation cast ciment fondu , fibre glass with polystyrene core -NZ sculpture on shore, Auckland, New Zealand; collection of IoDeposito NGO Pontebba (UD), Italy

' W.O.M.D ' (2012) Sculpture on shore- HD polystyrene and concrete base, 1000mmh x 280mmd, sculpture installation -NZ Sculpture on the Shore 2012, Auckland, New Zealand

Lang Ea

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once remarked, "my concern is never art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

Art will play its role just as it’s always done throughout our history, as the old saying goes ‘ A picture paints a thousand words ’ Religion, politics, advertising industries.. etc has always used Artists to reach its followers crossing languages and race barriers, including the illiterate.

However when a great Artist like Picasso uses Art to convey the destruction of War like his work ‘ Guernica ’ (1937), this is when the power of an art work goes beyond its functionality, as the work makes one statement yet evokes a million and one emotions, crossing all human barriers and the meaning is so timeless as it relates to any moment throughout our human history.

Your successful attempt to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols creates a compelling non linear narrative that, walking the thin line between conceptual and literal meanings, establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?

My work is psychological, and the narrative can be considered as a self helping reflection of my psyche, as it is driven by my subconscious urging to satisfy its craving to question and reflect meaning and truth. I take the intangible concept from my subconscious and make it tangible for myself and my viewer to contemplate with me.

As you have remarked once, your works are a compilation of emotional narratives, fuelled by personal experience of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge regime: while lots of artists from the contemporary scene, as Ai WeiWei or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to convey open sociopolitical criticism in their works, you seem more interested to hint the direction, inviting the viewers to a process of self-reflection that may lead to subvert a variety of usual, almost stereotyped cultural categories. Do you consider that your works could be considered political in a certain sense or did you seek to maintain a more neutral approach?

And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?

My works are charged with political and social criticism, however the art works are not political statements or open criticism like the works of artists like Ai WeiWei or Jennifer Linton, instead my art works are invitations to take a moment with me to contemplate and reflect what I am

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trying to address. Like all the other professions within society, I believe Artists play just an important role.

The way an Artist thinks about the world in many ways are very different, and to be able to convey an idea to a mass audience can play a very important and powerful role within contemporary society.

This is perhaps why Artist like Ai WeiWei can be a serious threat to a government as he can provide more meaning to the mass then the government can.

Over these years you participated in several group and solo shows and you are going to exhibit ‘POP!BANG! BOOM! little Pom Poms always turn into the mother of all POM ’ for Sculpture by the sea 2016 –Bondi in Sydney. One of the hallmarks of your practice is the capability to create direct involvement with the viewers, who are urged to evolve from a condition of mere spectatorship. So before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

My main focus and decision-making for each work is the concept, and the finished art work needs to evoke a response from the audience even

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negative ones, otherwise I believe the work is a failure and becomes a piece of object that was put there for no purpose.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Lang. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects?

How do you see your work evolving?

I am currently working on the work mentioned above for the Sydney international sculpture exhibition –2.5m ball structure with pom poms, which has been very challenging. I am heading over in August to a Artist Residency at Red gate in Beijing, China, and following it with an exhibition scheduled for mid next year. And in March 2017 I will go to another Artist Residency at the Vermont studio art centre in Johnson, USA. While I will be doing all of this my work ‘ Listen ’ (2014) is doing a tour in Europe including France and Belgium, from 30th of July 2016 to 2018, starting in the Trenches of Stavoli dei Plans of Dogna, Italy.

I don’t know what will come next from my subconscious, all I know is that it’s not ready to stop yet.

An interview by Josh Ryder, curator and Barbara Scott, curator landescape@artlover.com landescape@europe.com

Lang Ea

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Rachel Duffy Lives and works in Edinburgh, United Kingdom

An artist's statement

‘We live in the age of ugly beauty, when beauty is morally suspect’ Nancy, Etcoff: Survival of the Prettiest: The Science of Beauty (London: Little Brown and Company, 1999) 3.

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he idea of beauty is widely subjective and controversial in our culture and presents an important topic for discussion.

Fashion and cosmetics are utilised everyday by everybody and my work aims to question and consider the obsession behind how we look ourselves and how we look at others. Discovering the way people think and act towards the use of make-up, clothes and accessories allows me to filter that through my work and prompts a discussion about our generation and whether or not this idea of beauty is ‘morally suspect’. I can best interpret the way people think about themselves and others in relation to beauty through conversation. Transcripts from

interviews, comments found on social media and overheard conversations are then used in my work either literally as text or developed into a visual form.

Keeping a balance between the very clean aesthetic demonstrating the beautiful and idealistic side of beauty - and the underlying grotesque and honest side of beauty is imperative to me in order to evoke a fair discussion.

The use of materials – such as make-up, skin and hair products, nails and hair – presents this contrast in the work and adds a ‘real-life’ element to my practice.

Rachel Duffy

Self Portrait, 2015 fine liner on paper on velvet wall

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Rachel Duffy An interview by Barbara Scott, curator and Melissa Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Rachel Duffy accomplishes an unconventional investigation about the notion of beauty in the contemporary age: in her recent Self Portrait series that we'll be discussing in the following pages, she walks the viewers through a multilayered journey, inviting them to explore the elusive quality of our perceptual processes, going beyond the usual dichotomy between representation and abstraction. One of the most convincing aspects of Duffy's work is her successful attempt to consider the obsession behind how we look ourselves and how we look at others: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Rachel and a warm welcome to LandEscape. We would start this interview posing you a couple questions about your background: you have a solid formal training and you graduated with an BA (Hons) of Fine Art in Painting and Printmaking: how has this experience influenced your evolution as an artist?

And in particular, how does your cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself with art making and with the aesthetic problem in general?

The first year or two was hard, coming straight from a high school setting to full time in a studio was a pretty daunting transition for me which was probably a lot

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to do with my age. I guess I was just very insecure about being wrong or not being good enough. Being constantly surrounded by other artists in the same studio for four years inevitably influences your practice on both a practical and theoretical level because you have so many different banks of knowledge and experience at your disposal. Making art has always been a tool for me to try and derive answers to the bigger questions that I have come across in my growth and experiences. It has always been imperative to explore something that is, at the core, honest and personal to me.

You are a versatile artist and you incorporate a lot of media in your works, showing an organic synergy between a variety of expressive capabilities. Before starting to elaborate about your production, we would suggest to our readers to visit http://www.rachelsduffy.com in order to get a synoptic view of your multifaceted artistic production: while walking our readers through your process, we would like to ask you if you have you ever happened to realize that such multidisciplinary approach is the only way to express and convey the idea you explore.

It’s definitely an important factor of my exploration. The medium a work takes on is usually determined by the potential I feel the source has - whether that is a piece text or a photograph. I work a lot

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with this idea of masquerading gender and thinking about the way in which people adapt to different surroundings - like the location and company – and how they may change their personality, cosmetics and clothing to suit that. Thinking about theorists like Joan Riviere, and her text Womanliness of Masquerade, poses an interesting idea about sexuality and gender and this interlinks a lot with my thoughts on masquerade and how we play with our identities. I think the multidisciplinary approach acts as a reflection of this as well as a reflection of my personality and work method.

For this special issue of LandEscape we have selected your recent Self Portrait series, a stimulating project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught our attention of your inquiry into the files of sel portraiture is the way it accomplishes the difficult task of creating a channel of communication between the conscious sphere and the subconscious sphere. When walking our readers through the genesis of Self Portrait series, would you shed a light about the role of metaphors in your process?

I like to play around a lot working with the contrast between the grotesque and the ideal. It is pertinent to my practice to explore the dirtier and residual side of cosmetics as a way in which to neutralise the positive and the negatives of the subject matter. Creating something idealistic out of the everyday “throwaway” materials engages the viewer in a conversation about what really is beautiful and brings me back to the idea of masquerading gender and how we re-create and produce a version of ourselves we consider to be more acceptable. The installation of the hair pieces represents the repetitive nature of the way fashion chainreacts from person to person and being of a

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Untitled, 2015 installation

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Untitled, 2015 Installation

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very relevant style to our generation is suggestive of the way we change our appearances. I think it’s important for me to address the use of text within some of the pieces. In the portrait series it was important to draw attention to every aspect of my daily face making process - each drawing being the equivalent to an aspect of time in our lives. The drawing with the phone at the end concludes the story as an act of validation – for example the posting of a picture to Facebook or the sending of a Snapchat – you are ready for the world to see your version of yourself for that day.

Your work could be also considered a challenging interrogation of traditional portraiture: as Philippe Dagen once established in his Le Silence des peintres, the coming of a straight realism has caused a progressive retenchment of painting from the mere representetive role of reality. With exception of Hyperrealism movement, visual arts are nowadays more and more marked out with a symbolic feature. Do you think that the dichotomy between Representation and Visualization is by now irremediable?

It is hard because in this culture everyone is an artist. The saturation of the art world has created a situation where the artist is fearful that his or her work will have no meaning and thus no impact. It has built insecurity in that there is expectancy that for your art to be successful it must stem from some profound idea. And from the other side, as a viewer, the art world can be a daunting place. There is a desire to understand art and this will inevitably lead them to find a meaning in the work that may or may not have been intended. I guess, in conclusion, there is an all round insecurity that clouds art making and in this day and age we are constantly seeking validation and I think a lot of that has changed with the progression of accessibility of things like the Internet.

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Your inquiry into the notion of beauty resists to immediate classifications and seems to communicate the idea that Art is a vehicle not only to express feelings and concepts, but to also dissect them, grapple with them, and integrate them. How did you decide to explore this form of expression?

All of my work stems from my own insecurities in terms of my identity.

Everything I explore is something I haven’t been able to understand or make sense of.

I don’t think I could have ever made a practice out of an abstract concept because I want my work to be honest and truthful to me not only as an artist, but also as an individual.

The fruible set of elements you draw from universal imagery triggers the viewers' primordial parameters concerning our relation with physicality: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

For me, the function of the work begins with the artist as it allows for a personal exploration of something that is important to them. I don’t believe the artist should be making with the intent to impose an idea or an opinion on the viewer because how we look at art and absorb it is personal to everyone. I mean looking back at that idea of everyone is an artist; the function of art isn’t as precious as it used to be. There is so much material out there, with so many over-lapping ideas that, in my opinion, the authenticity of this can only be true to the artist.

When exploring the obsession behind how we look ourselves and how we look at others, you seem to address the viewers to get free of the constraints that affect

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Untitled, 2013 Installation

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Untitled, 2013 Hair dye on towel

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contemporary unstable societies. Many artists from the contemporary scene, as Judy Chicago or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to include socio- political criticism in their works. It is not unusual that an artist, rather than urging the viewer to take a personal position on a subject, tries to convey his personal take about the major issues that affect contemporary age.

Do you consider that your works are political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach? Do you feel that it’s your responsibility as an artist to teach and raise awareness of certain issues?

I try to maintain a neutral approach because I can relate to both the positive and negatives of the subject. However, there is so much negativity surrounding the industry I think it is important to consider the positives and it is refreshing for me to be able to think about the way in which it impacts our personal growth and identities. Something that we invest so much time and money in presents an important topic for exploration and conversation. That’s really what I’m trying to do – start a conversation. Everybody is different and everybody will have their own personal investment in the subject so I think it’s important to leave room for the viewer to be able to understand it in a context that is valuable to them. I don’t think as an artist there is a responsibility to teach but I do agree that it is a way of raising awareness of topics that the viewer may not have considered before. To me, art is a learning process for the artist through an exploration of their reality. What the viewer can or will take from somebody’s work is secondary to that and whilst that is important it is not pertinent to my art making. Making art is just the way I choose to explore the bigger issues because it makes sense to me.

Your successful attempt to produce a dialectical fusion that operates as a system of symbols, including written language,

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creates a compelling non linear narrative that, walking the thin line between conceptual and literal meanings, establishes direct relations with the viewers. German multidisciplinary artist Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?

I think this definitely holds true for the situation we are in now within this generation – particularly with the Internet evolving the way it has. For my work it is really important because the materials I choose to use convey ideas that couldn’t be shown solely through traditional medium.

The idea of taking materials that cut a fine line between tacky and glamorous became important to my practice in order to create a contrast between the naïve and the sincere.

The comparison between them allows me to create a space that draws the viewer into a situation that is not always as idealistic as it may seem. The uses of the residual mediums like make-up cleansing wipes and nail clippings, which you notice as you engage closer with the work, begins a conversation between the viewer and the artist because they are relatable materials. Drawing ideas from consumer culture is a comforting aspect of the work and this works in parallel with the narrative that my work tells. This comes directly from the people I’m surrounded by and have been surrounded by growing up, in school, in university and in work. It is important that my work resonates with them because that is my reality and where my experiences have come from.

Over these years you works have been exhibited in several occasions, including your recent participation to the group exhibition All You Can Eat, at The Old

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Untitled, 2015 Installation

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Untitled, 2015 Installation

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Truman Brewery, London. Your work is strictly connected to the chance of establishing a direct involvement with the viewers, who are called to evolve from a mere spectatorship to conscious participants on an intellectual level, so before leaving this conversation I would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience.

Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?

I suppose I think about the way in which the language is a comforting aspect of the work.

It appeals to my generation and the culture we are in. It also creates a discomfort for older generations who may not understand it or relate to it quite as directly and that really highlights this progression of culture. Fashion and trends move everything along so quickly – and this will only continue to speed up – and I try to express a lot of that in the medium and style in which the work is produced.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Rachel. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects. How do you see your work evolving?

Predicting the future of my work is hard for me. I guess the work will evolve in the same way I evolve as a person and who I am surrounded by. Trends and fashion will inevitably restructure my practice and the evolution of culture will appear throughout the work.

An interview by Barbara Scott, curator and Melissa Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

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Byron

Rich

Lives and works in Meadville PA, USA

An artist's statement

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eaningful exploration of the boundary between materiality and immateriality is necessary as the techno-sphere redefines the social landscape. My works attempts to forge a visual language urging viewers to consider the effect the techno-sphere plays in their day-to-day lives, and demystify the processes by which the techno-sphere is made possible. Through critical engagement of the tools and techniques of biotechnology and communication technology, I strive to empower participants to explore technological potentialities, wresting institutional control over the tools and techniques that define the paradigms.

Decay, degradation, and the notion of scientific objectivity play consistent roles in my practice. I design systems that offer moral conundrums to participants, and present questions relating to their personal relationships to technological tools of communication, informational analysis, and

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biotechnology through graphic and interactive interfaces.

I integrate biological science, ecological study, computer programming, digital media, photography, video, and sculptural elements to convey my conceptual motivations. Integral to my process is producing and utilizing open-source software and biotech to circumvent traditional corporate and institutional technological outlets.

Although the technology I employ is operational and proven, its utilization in a fanciful manor allows the work to exist on the boundary of fiction and reality resonating with the hyper-real plane emblematic of contemporary technoculture. Operating in this liminal space allows the work to raise questions pertaining to the effect on identity politics and the natural environment when the boundary between the material world of physical bodies, objects, and experiences becomes intertwined with the immaterial world of the information-focused technosphere.

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IMMOR(t)AL (in collaboration with John Wenskovitch and Heather Brand) 22

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Byron Rich An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Many artists from the contemporary scene attempt to establish effective synergies between Technology and Art: but most of them just uses cutting edge techniques to explore concepts: what instead marks out Byron Rich's approach is an incessant investigation about the inner nature of the variety of medium he probes, to unveil the impact of techno-sphere on identity. Rich's multimedia installations reject any conventional classification and could be considered an interface between the ever growing unstable categories of reality and fiction: we are particularly pleased to introduce our readers to his stimulating production.

Hello Byron and welcome to ART Habens.

To start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background?

You have a solid formal training and after your studies in New Media, you nurtured your education with a MFA of Emerging Practices that you received about two years ago from the University of Buffalo.

How have these experiences influenced your evolution as an artist? And in particular, since you currently hold the position of Assistant Professor at the Allegheny College, I would like to ask how does teaching informs the way you nowadays relate yourself to art making: have you ever happened to draw inspiration from the idea of your students?

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Sure. I was born in Calgary, Alberta, in western Canada. I grew up there, spending much of my youth riding my bike in the foothills in the shadow of the Rocky Mountains. It was a pretty idyllic childhood actually. My parents are fairly free-spirited, and there weren’t a ton of restrictions on me as long as I was home by dinner. I was free to just be immersed in this beautiful landscape.

The city itself has a weird paradox about it.

There are vast parks with massive Douglas Firs, then wild grasslands juxtaposed against the contemporary office towers that spring up out of seemingly nowhere. I think that juxtaposition was more important than I really could comprehend as a child. In retrospect I always grappled with the idea of reconciling a vast unknowable wild world with the strict geometry and formalism that humanity likes to impart on it.

When I was twelve I became quite sick, and spent many months in hospital hooked up to myriad life support systems. I think I started to believe I was a bit of a cyborg, artificially sustained via this vast digital/mechanical apparatus. I should mention that my dad and I would always watch Star Trek: The Next Generation, so the Borg was omnipresent in my imagination. Spending so much time alone while sick I somehow felt a strange sense of interconnectedness to something larger than myself. I talked myself out of isolation and into believing that I was just a tiny part of a massively complex system that included digital and mechanical entities. I was a bit intense for someone not even in their teenage years.

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I worked at an artist Run Centre called TRUCK in Calgary, supervised by the director, Renato Vitic. I was a handful still, but he helped me get a better sense of the possibility of being part of a non-commercial art scene. While at Truck, I met a wonderful artist, Jessica Thompson. She was an artist-in-residence with TRUCK. She showed me an art world that I hadn’t realized existed, that being the deeply inspiring and crisis-inducing field of Critical Theory. She forced me to apply to The University at Buffalo where I’d be able to study under two of my greatest influences, Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble, and Paul Vanouse. I scribbled my letter of intent while sleeping in a tent in a peanut allergy induced stupor while in New Zealand, never expecting to get in. When I arrived home to Canada, I received my acceptance letter.

Byron Rich

I spent my teens grappling with angst, but finding an outlet in an art class that I took every Friday night for 4 or 5 years. The meditative vibe that this class seemed to elicit brought me some peace.

Then University. I studied with a wonderful professor, Jean-Rene Leblanc. He really set me free to be as creatively liberated as I desired. In a way, I set up my own classes, and pursued whatever medium I felt best articulated my message, most of the time failing miserably, but I was free. He is the person I credit with much of my ambition.

After two unbelievably trying, inspiring, and deeply contemplative years, I completed my MFA having had the chance to work with Steve and Paul. They introduced me to integrating science, or at least ideas inspired by science, into my work. They really made me feel as though I had something to say as an artist, and to a lesser degree, a theorist.

Grad school was my first taste of being part of a discourse so much bigger than myself, and my personal feeling and beliefs. I felt like a contributor to culture in some small way.

And to me, making culture is what artists do.

I had some MASSIVE failures in graduate school, and made a few works that I look back on a shake my head in disbelief that I could be so silly. I still have a ton to learn.

Now that I am the teacher, it is both terrifying, and incredibly satisfying. Paul once told me that “You’ll always feel like a bit of an imposter as a professor.”, and it’s true.

That said, no one inspires me to build more knowledge, and become more proficient than my students. They force me to be empathetic, self-reflexive, and curious. I love them. Teaching is the only thing I actually feel good at. There is nothing better than feeling the moment when a student realizes

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the power that art can hold. When they become aware of its ability to introduce people to new ways of thinking, and the possibility of it as a tool for building compassion and empathy, I feel moved and that I’m contributing to something far larger and more profound. I get that feeling of deep interconnectedness that I mentioned earlier.

A feeling that few other experiences can elicit.

My students have moved me from a sort of selfish mode of making into a place of really wanting to make things that make people reconsider how they interact in the world, whether that world is physical or digital, or somewhere in between as the case most often seems. That was a bit of a novel, so I’ll stop.

You are a versatile artist and I have highly appreciated the cross-disciplinary feature that marks out your multifaceted production and I would suggest our readers to visit http://www.byronrich.com in order to get a synoptic view of the variety of your projects. While superimposing concepts and techniques from apparetly opposite spheres, as Art and Science, and consequently crossing the borders of different artistic fields, have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different viewpoints is the only way to achieve some results, to express specific concepts?

I am in no way a student of the sciences. I cribbed a phrase from Paul (sorry Paul!), that being “impassioned amateur”. I learn what I need to as I go. Sometimes I play with pseudo-science to point out the lack of scientific criticality and knowledge that seems to permeate contemporary culture, and sometimes I will get a little further into the sciences (still only dipping my toe into the vast expanse that science is). Science is important to me without question. I’m absolutely fascinated by it. I wish I had the mind for it.

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Byron Rich

Byron Rich

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IMMOR(t)AL (in collaboration with John Wenskovitch and Heather Brand)

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Paint-by-Numbers (in Collaboration with Bobby Gryzynger)

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I firmly believe that scientists are some of the most creative people that exist. They are asking profound questions in pursuit of some kind of ultimate answer to the ultimate questions about who we are, where we came from, and what is possible in an unimaginably incalculable universe. People like Carl Sagan, Neil Degrasse Tyson, and Stephen Hawking have made some of these concepts accessible to me. The unselfish pursuit of scientists into answering some of the most complex questions is remarkable to me, so their willingness to articulate some of these massive notions into a form that I can digest is something I am deeply thankful for.

Artists can come at some of these questions that scientists are asking relatively unburdened by convention. At the intersection of Art and Science is where the cultural contributions can be most fully made in my estimation. Science will always be a borderline mystical practice to most people, much in the same way art making is. The performative nature of the lab parallels the performance that occurs in an artist’s studio, at least to those outside the disciplines.

When these performances collide, the ethical and philosophical boundaries of technologies, sciences, and the public policy relating to them, can be most deeply explored. The true innovators of this field are people like Paul and Steve, Adam Brown, Julian Oliver, and Ionat Zurr and Oron Catts of SymbioticA. They are asking the most important questions, and contributing to culture in a way that I aspire to. They exist as artists on the boundary of reality and fiction, probably my favorite realm to inhabit.

I would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from IMMOR(t)AL, an interesting project that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. What has at once caught my attention of this work is the way it brings to a new level of significance an impressive quantity of data: I think it's important to underline that your process does not forces concepts to relate

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that would otherwise be unrelated. Rather, you provide them of a stage of semantic amplification that extracts meanings where the viewers could recognize just a huge quantity of data to be deciphered. Would you like to introduce our readers to the genesis of this project? In particular, how did you manage the collaboration with to John Wenskovitch and Heather Brand to developed the initial idea?

IMMOR(t)AL is a strange project in many ways.

It ties together rather disparate ideas and technologies into a semi-coherent form. The basic idea came about when I attended an incubator work shop in Buffalo, NY with Ionat and Oron. It was held at Big Orbit Gallery, the same venue where I staged my thesis show.

I’ll explain the project some.

We are using EEG data to control the conditions inside a custom built and designed incubator and transilluminator. Inside the incubator resides an eGFP HeLa colony. The life of this colony is determined by the data gathered via EEG. On a most basic level it attempts to get viewers to realize that actions produce unseen or intended consequences, not matter how seemingly devoid of intention those actions are.

Second, we wanted to delve more deeply into the subjectivity of data analysis and interpretation, and the dangers that exist when data is filtered through bias and presented to the public as fact. The underlying pure data may be objective, but how it is presented is often deeply subjective. To that end we chose to utilize EEG, or electroencephalogram. EEG is a deeply misunderstood technology, one that the public generally has very little understanding of. Anecdotally we noticed that many people seem to believe that somehow EEG is able to read their thoughts, control impulses, etc. In reality EEG data is just a glimpse into what is happening inside the brain as it monitors spontaneous brain activity via

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TWEET_SHOT v2.0 (in collaboration with John Wenskovitch)

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Autonomous Player Simulation (in collaboration with Ian F. Thomas and Alex Derwick)

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minute changes in electrical patterns. It isn’t the witchcraft it is believed to be. Even the placement of electrodes to monitor electrical brain activity is highly subjective, differing from individual to individual. The idea that we are reading peoples minds and that is what is controlling the system is completely wrong. It is a highly subjective system by design.

Lastly we wanted to investigate the idea of body sovereignty, and agency, especially those who are part of marginalized sectors of society.

We chose the highly contentious and often used HeLa cell as our subject. The ethics of our use of the HeLa cell is very debatable, and we are open to this criticism as it offers a portal to discussing the ethics of how the HeLa cell came to prominence in the first place. The HeLa cell is important because it was the first recognized immortal cell line, however it was taken without permission from an African America woman, Henrietta Lacks, in the 1950s as she was dying from cervical cancer. From there it became an indispensible research tool, but also a huge money generator, for cultures were commoditized and sold to labs across the world.

Her family didn’t know that her cells lived on beyond her death, nor did they receive any kind of monetary compensation.

With all that said, IMMOR(t)AL is highly contentious as it delves deeply into institutionalized racism, and issues surrounding self-ownership and governance, especially on the part of marginalized sectors of society. It’s a very sad piece in many ways. Controlling whether these cells live or die via a highly subjective interpretation of brain activity is a bit unsettling.

As for how the collaboration came about, it really started as a conversation in my living room. Heather had just finished a very well know book about Henrietta Lacks, and I had just found an EEG setup to play around with. I wondered about controlling an incubator with an EEG, and John said he could make it happen by building custom software, and here we are!

John is a brilliant programmer, and Heather find

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Untitled (Addition 3198713) is a further development of a concept test from 2012 entitled Farnsworth Additions.

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ideas, and utilize whatever I can to make them a reality (or fiction). I think I need to fall in love with a process, something I’ve failed to do. I’ve missed out on jobs and opportunities at every corner because I’m just never in love with a way of producing and too in love with the idea. I think I need to become more knowledgeable. Theoretically and technically I have a lot of work to do in becoming the kind of artist I want to be.

I think my work is on the verge of major change. I don’t know what path that will lead me down yet, but with some time I will figure something out. Or not. This summer I have been lucky enough to spend my time in Europe at a couple residencies. Pilotenkueche (www.pilotenkueche.net) in Leipzig, Germany. The second was a bit of a dream come true. It was Ars Bioarctica, in Kilpisjarvi, Finland. Working in these two wildly different environments has produced some interesting outcomes. I’m working on a project called Repatriated, and another called GARRy (GPS Assisted Ragweed Robot). Both are about reintroducing material and immaterial remnants back to their origins. Repatriated is a huge departure for me. I’m excited about it.

I’ll be heading home to western Canada in August, and I’m going to do another Repatriation of residue from the Fukushima Daiichi disaster.

IMMOR(t)AL (in collaboration with J. Wenskovitch and H. Brand)

nuance in ideas and concepts that I would never notice. It’s a very healthy collaboration.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Byron. Finally, would you like to tell our readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I have no idea. I don’t think of myself as much of a maker. I think I come up with crazy

To answer your question more concretely, I need to get a handle on the biological science side of things. That is my goal now. Juggling gaining that intimate knowledge with showing, teaching, and trying to have a life is hard, and will take time. I’ve never been known for my patience. Patience is what I’m working hardest at finding.

An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

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M iya Ando Lives and works in New York City, NY USA

An artist's statement

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iya Ando is an American artist whose metal canvases and sculpture articulate themes of contradiction and juxtaposition of ideas.The foundation of Ando’s practice is the transformation of surfaces. A descendant of Bizen sword makers, she was raised among sword smiths and Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan.

Applying traditional techniques of her ancestry, she skillfully transforms sheets of burnished industrial steel, using heat and chemicals, into ephemeral abstractions suffused with subtle gradations of color. She says: “I have a deep appreciation for the dynamic properties of metal and its ability to reflect light. Metal simultaneously conveys strength and permanence and yet in the same instant can appear delicate, fragile, luminous, soft, ethereal. The medium becomes both a contradiction and juxtaposition for expressing notions of evanescence, including ideas such as the transitory and ephemeral nature of all things, quietude and the underlying impermanence of everything.”Miya Ando received a bachelor degree in East Asian

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Studies from the University of California at Berkeley and attended Yale University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery.

She apprenticed with a master metal smith in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy in 2009.

Ando is the recipient of many awards, including the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2012. Her work has been exhibited extensively all over the world, including a recent show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum. Miya Ando has produced numerous public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot tall commemorative sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel which is installed permanently at Zaha Hadid’s Aquatic Centre in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London. Her large-scale installation piece ‘Emptiness the Sky’ (Shou Sugi Ban) was featured in the 56th Venice Biennale, in the ‘Frontiers Reimagined’ Exhibition at the Museo Di Palazzo Grimani in 2015.

She lives and works in New York. @studiomiyaando

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LandEscape meets

Miya Ando An interview by Melissa C. Hilborn, curator and Josh Ryder, curator landescape@europe.com

Questioning the role of the medium as a semantic vehicle, New York based artist Miya Ando investigates about the ephemeral nature of reality, in relation to the contingent reality we inhabit. While seducing the viewer with references to the primordial nature of elements she juxtaposes, she succedes in creating an area of deep interplay, that urges us to forget our need for a univocal understanding of symbolic contents, inviting us to rethink about the atemporal mark of Reality.

One of the most convincing aspect of Ando's work is the way she effectively harmonizes ancestral heritage with a lively gaze towards contemporariness. I'm very pleased to introduce our readers to his refined artistic production.

Hello Miya and a warm welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? In particular, I think it's important to mention that as a descendant of Bizen sword makers, you were raised among sword smiths and Buddhist

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priests in a temple in your native Okayama: what is the role of traditional heritage in the way you conceive your works?

Hello and thank you very much for your interview.

I am American, my mother is Japanese and my father is Russian-American. I lived when I was a child in a redwood forest in Northern California and also spent time in my family Buddhist Temple in Japan. My ancestors were sword smiths before they became Buddhist priests. My work is inspired and informed by an investigation of history, as well as by ideas of the ancient past juxtaposed with contemporary ideas and techniques. I am interested in matters of identity and memory.

Now let's focus on your artistic production: I would start from Emptiness The Sky , an extremely interesting work that has been featured in the 56th Venice Biennale and that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article: and I would suggest our readers to visit directly at http://miyaando.com in order to get a wider idea of your

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multifaceted artistic production. In the meanwhile, would you tell us something about the genesis of this interesting project? What was your initial inspiration?

The installation piece ‘Emptiness The Sky’ is inspired by a Japanese kanji character, ‘Sora’ which means both ‘emptiness or void’ as well as ‘sky’.

Sunyata is another word for this idea.

The idea was to create an empty space of reflection, the form is inspired by traditional ‘chashitsu’ or tea houses, a very simple structure which delineates a space separate from the mundane world. The piece is about memory, identity and the notion of ‘home’. The free-standing sculpture is clad on the exterior with a charred wood, called Yaki-sugi or Shou Sugi Ban. This material is used in my neighborhood in Okayama, Japan.

It is a fire-preventative. The material embodies transformation. I find poetic the idea that this material is burned in order to protect it and the contents of the building within it. The interior has floor to ceiling metal paintings. The eastern or Zen notion of ‘empty’ has a meaning which can mean ‘full of opportunity to change’ and I am very interested in this concept.

The ambience created by Emptiness The Sky has reminded me the concept of Heterotopia elaborated

by French social theorist Michel Foucault. What has mostly impacted on me is the way you have been capable of bringing a new level of

significance to the sign of absence, that invites us to rethink about the concept of the environment we inhabit in. This is a recurrent feature of your approach that urges the viewers' perception in order to challenge the common way to perceive not only the outside world, but our inner dimension... By the way, I'm sort of convinced that some informations & ideas are hidden, or even "encrypted" in the environment we live in, so we need -in a way- to decipher them. Maybe that one of the roles of an artist could be to reveal unexpected sides of Nature, especially of our inner Nature... what's your point about this?

Emptiness The Sky is a physical space which represents a different consciousness or state. I used Shou Sugi Ban (Charred Wood) to demarcate this space, the wood is a material which has very clearly been through a transformation and this is a symbol to represent an entry into a different plane or field. My intention was to create a physical representation of an inner space, a space of memory, a space in another level of consciousness.

Another interesting work of yours that has particularly impacted on me and on which I would like to spend some words is entitled Obon: in particular, when I first happened to get to know with this piece I tried to relate all the visual information and the presence of a primary elements as water and leaves to a single meaning. But I soon later realized that I had to fit into the visual

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rhythm suggested by the work, forgetting my need for a univocal understanding of its symbolic content: in your work, rather that a conceptual interiority, I can recognize the desire to enabling us to establish direct relations... Would you say that it's more of an intuitive or a systematic process?

‘Obon’ is an ongoing public art project that I have been putting forth for the past six years in various locations and countries.

The piece is inspired by the ancient Japanese festival of Obon, a ceremony to honor and commemorate the departed. Obon is an ancient event, which occurs every 15th day of the 7th month of the Lunar Calendar (midAugust).

It is believed that during this 3 day ceremony the spirits of one’s departed family members and ancestors return to the home and are reunited with their loved ones. Lanterns are hung inside the house to welcome the spirits inside and on the evening of the last day of the ceremony, lanterns are floated on rivers to guide the spirits back to the netherworld.

There is a beautiful, nondenominational notion of respect, interconnectivity, history, and memory that is celebrated with the festival of Obon. For the ‘Obon’ (Puerto Rico) version of this piece, I created 1000 hand painted (resin and phosphorescence) skeleton Ficus Religiosa (Bodhi) leaves. The leaves were hand painted with non-toxic, phosphorescent pigment.

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Emptiness The Sky (Shou Sugi Ban) 84 x 84 x 84 Inches, Charred Wood, Metal Paintings.

Installation created for The 56th Venice Biennale, 2015

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9/11 Memorial Sculpture created with steel recovered from The World Trade Center Buildings 28 feet x 6 feet x 4 feet. Permanently Installed at Zaha Hadid Aquatic Centre Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London

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Miya Ando

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This phosphorescent pigment ‘charged’ with sunlight during the day as the leaves were cast afloat on a small pond, at night in darkness the leaves emitted a soft, blue glow for a five hours. Each fragile leaf appeared clear during the day and became luminous at night. This was a 24 hour, temporal public project.

Multidisciplinarity is a crucial aspect of your art practice and you seem to be in an incessant search of an organic, almost intimate symbiosis between several disciplines, taking advantage of the creative and expressive potential of Sculpture as well as of Painting: while crossing the borders of different artistic fields have you ever happened to realize that a symbiosis between different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?

I consider materials to be intrinsic to my practice, I focus a great deal of attention on materials and in selecting the appropriate material for each project. The material reiterates, supports, communicates the idea of each work, therefore I allow myself to consider any and all substrates and mediums in my work. Skeleton leaves are very intriguing to me in their paradoxical nature. They were once alive, now they have been bleached, dyed and preserved, leaving only their structure. I sew them into configurations, mandalas and hanging installations for example, such as ‘Koyo’ (which in Japanese means

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‘Changing of Color of Autumn Leaves).

The leaves appear to be delicate, lacelike, fragile but in fact they are quite strong.

During these years your works have been extensively exhibited around the world, including a recent show curated by Nat Trotman of the Guggenheim Museum. So, before taking leave from this interesting conversation I would like to pose a a question about the nature of the relation with your audience: in particular, do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decisionmaking process in terms of what type of language for a particular context?

I remain within my own established visual vocabulary regardless of the context.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Miya.

Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

Thank you very much, I have two upcoming solo exhibitions, September 2015 at Sundaram Tagore Gallery Hong Kong and October 2015 at Sundaram Tagore Gallery Singapore. I will post images and information on instagram: @studiomiyaando Also my piece if The Venice Biennale will be on view through November 22, 2015.

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Miya Ando's Solo Shows

Sky/Emptiness (Sora/Ku) Sundaram Tagore Gallery Hong Kong: Wednesday, September 23 to Friday, October 30 Title: Sky/Emptiness (Sora/Ku) Sundaram Tagore Gallery Singapore: Thursday, October 29 to Sunday, December 6

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Myriam Dalal Lives and works in Paris, France

An artist's statement

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efining and redefining memory, death and the notion of material presence through my work, was initially triggered by a personal experience from which I started depicting the anxiety of existing, keeping a trace and the duality of living and dying that human beings still fail to abide to.

In the book “the possible life of Christian Boltanski”, Catherine Grenier asked Boltanski whether he thinks art’s main purpose is to retain something from childhood, the artist replied saying that art is an attempt to prevent death and the flight of time.

He then added that art is always a sort of defeat, a struggle one can’t win: “Starting a portrait of your brother from scratch every day, you’re not

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going to make him immortal: he’s going to age, he’s going to change and the portrait will never be him.”

Similar to Boltanski, I might, after all, be trying to prevent death, while seeking to add to discussions of personal and collective memory within the context of society and its narratives: from the culture of commemoration, the grieve, the aftermath of conflict and the many personal mourning agonies.

Being both emotionally and conceptually engaged in the topic, my work seeks to develop and communicate the experience through various visual perceptions.

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LandEscape meets

Myriam Dalal An interview by Julian Thomas Ross, curator and Melissa C. Hilborn, curator landescape@europe.com

Myriam Dalal's works accomplishes a multilayered exploration of the notions of memory, death and material presence, drawing the viewers into a liminal area in which subcounscious and conscious level cohexist in a consistent unity. Her projects trigger the viewers' perceptual parameter to raise questions about the elusive relationship between universal imagery and the way we relate ourselves to the realm of experience, creating an unconventional and captivating narrative.

One of the most convincing aspect of Dalal's approach is the way it condenses the non-sharpness quality of memory with a tangible language, walking the viewers into an area of intellectual interplay that urges them to explore unstability in the contemporary age: we are very pleased to introduce our readers to her multifaceted artistic production.

Hello Myriam and welcome to LandEscape: to start this interview, would you like to tell us something about your background? You have a solid formal training and after having earned BA in Fine Arts you nurtured your education joining the Masters in fine Arts program at the Académie Libanaise des Beaux Arts in Beirut, where you eventually degreed with distinction about five years ago, with specialization in Artistic photography.

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your evolution as an artist? And in particular, how does your Lebanese cultural substratum inform the way you relate yourself to art making and to the aesthetic problem in general?

I’ve always wanted to be a “painter”. I was three and my parents started noticing the very little –arguable- “talent” that I had.

Honestly, I don’t think it was because of my remarkable doodles, but what got me hooked up, practicing ever since, was the appreciation I always received when I showed them the sketches. Putting my three year old reasoning into Hegel’s philosophy on arts and aesthetics, I think what I wanted was to visually communicate with a broader audience, in an attempt to restore my existence.

My academic background played a fundamental role in rooting the research, and versatility of both medium and concept in my work. As for the connection between the social context of being Lebanese and my work, I’d like to say that, as a human and an artist, my universal being is deeply and undeniably affected by my merged memories and experiences in this sociocultural environment.

The distinctive feature that marks out your multifaceted production is a successful attempt to condemn into a consistent unity the notions of memory, death and material presence: your approach reveals an incessant search of an organic balance between the emotional

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I also feel the anxiety of my concept.

The combination of both easy to connect to, personal and emotionally elaborative thoughts, with the universal and conceptual nature of the visual work that I present isn’t the only way I found to express the ideas I explore, but rather the only way I chose. I’m not interested in elitist approaches to contemporary art.

We would start to focus on your artistic production beginning from leaving soon, an interesting multimedia installation that our readers have already started to get to know in the introductory pages of this article. This project challenges the viewers' perceptual parameters to rethink the elusive relationships between memory and the way it is triggered by sense: when walking your readers through the genesis of this captivating project, would you tell us something about the role of memory in your work and why you have centered a relevant part of your practice on it?

Myriam Dalal

sphere and an autonomous conceptualism. Before starting to elaborate about your production, would you like to tell to our readers something about your process and set up? In particular, have you ever happened to realize that a synergy between several viewpoints is the only way to express of the ideas you explore?

The fascination I have for death is every series’ trigger. (I think I share this fascination with every human being.) From that point on, I question every facet of a subcategorized death panel. I question but

When losing a loved one, memory works in the most repetitive pattern, unlike the saying that time heals wounds.

Those now burdening wounds keep surfacing even when they’re mostly unwelcome. The human senses are scientifically blamed of the involuntarily triggering of these memories and must be hypothetically shut to escape to forgetfulness.

“Leaving soon” exemplified my personal anguish which transitioned to a nationwide scale, by losing collectively as victims of suicide bombings in Lebanon since 2013.

I used all five senses in my installation to emotionally trigger the viewer’s memory.

Other than in “leaving soon”, memory’s responsibility in parallel to death has taken a significant part of my practice because of its abstract nature and the absurdity of its involvement in death and its reasoning both individually and collectively.

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After all, everyone wants to leave something behind in their quest to immortality and memory ends up being their medium.

Leaving soon has been recently exhibited at the Ayyam Gallery that has been transformed into a site-specific installation: how do you see the relationship between public sphere and the role of art in public space?

When curator Rania Monzer from Ayyam Gallery Beirut suggested we disregard the gallery’s space and build a dark room in which the installation fits, “leaving soon” surpassed its initial impact solely because this meant that any given viewer is not asked to step into a gallery to interact with the work, but rather enter a neutral space, free to maximize the experience with all five senses.

In my opinion, and as I previously explained, the more people I can connect to, the closer I am to being an artist and in that sense, the public sphere and the integration of viewers in the work itself is crucial when no space limits are forced.

Another interesting work from your recent production that has particularly impacted on us ad on which we'll be pleased to spend some words is entitled Consuming Memory in which you have accomplished a compelling investigation about the idea of consumption, that pervades our contemporary societies and especially the Lebanese one, that is caused by the constant fear of being held back towards history. We have been impressed with multilayered feature of this work, which gives permanence to the intrinsic ephemeral nature of the notion of memory. So we would take this occasion to ask you if in your opinion personal experience is an absolutely indispensable part of a creative process... Do you think that a creative process could be disconnected from direct experience?

Genuine is a virtue of art. In “Consuming Memory” I tried to convey a personal theory in which I connected consumerism to collective

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Leaving Soon, 2013

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memory in an attempt to visually translate and question the pattern of Lebanese collective memory. I wouldn’t call it direct experience but rather personal interest and approach submersed in a socio-cultural background.

For instance, in my series “Souvenir”, I visualized the feeling of suicidal patients whose memory is generally diagnosed with selective impairment. The creative process here wasn’t triggered by direct experience but still lies under the socio-cultural context of the subject itself which was elicited after reading in a recent research conducted by a local NGO, that one Lebanese citizen commits suicide every three days.

Consuming Memory has impressed us also for the way it raises questions about our contemporary societies, often subverting the perceptual parameters that affect the unstable sensibility: many artists from the contemporary scene, as Judy Chicago or more recently Jennifer Linton, use to include socio-political criticism in their works. It is not unusual that an artist, rather than urging the viewer to take a personal position on a subject, tries to convey his personal take about the major issues that affect contemporary age. Do you consider that your works could be political in this way or do you seek to maintain a neutral approach? And in particular, what could be in your opinion the role that an artist could play in the contemporary society?

I don’t look for answers, I’m not a scientist and I don’t make judgments because I’m in no position of favoring doctrines that end up serving as propaganda. My work was never about making statements that favor or criticize a socio-political matter; it rather raises questions.

It’s neither up to artists to increase awareness, given the fact that campaigns do that efficiently; nor irritate the world with their political statements.

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Artist Mona Hatoum doesn’t portray the Israeli regime’s atrocities committed in Palestine in “Present Tense” for instance; she rather succeeds in incorporating the viewer in thoughtful questions of identity, heritage, borders and history.

Artists shouldn’t play any role in contemporary society other than maintaining an authentically true and genuine approach to their world.

We definitely love the way Ra’is El Teiboot questions the abstract feature of images, unveiling the visual feature of information you developed through an effective non linear narrative. In particular, playing with the evocative power of parts of human body, Ra’is El Teiboot, establishes direct relations with the viewers: German photographer and sculptor Thomas Demand once stated that "nowadays art can no longer rely so much on symbolic strategies and has to probe psychological, narrative elements within the medium instead". What is your opinion about it? And in particular how do you conceive the narrative for your works?

“Ra’is El Teiboot” which translates into “How to Make the Coffin Dance” was based on a non linear narrative form because it served the purpose of a DIY self explanatory photo book which is supposed to teach the reader how to perform the culturally familiar middle eastern coffin dance in eight different steps, as performed by the dancers, actors and performers chosen to take part in this catalogue.

Several art movements argued over whether art should hold symbols, tell stories or question psychological connotations, whether in film making, photography or literature. But I think the approach that serves most in communicating the subject, should determine the technical means to it.

The performative nature Ra’is El Teiboot of triggers primordial parameters concerning our relation with physicality: as Gerhard Richter once remarked, "my concern is never

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Myriam Dalal

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Leaving Soon, 2013

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

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Myriam Dalal

Myriam Dalal

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CONTEMPORARY ART REVIEW

art, but always what art can be used for": what is your opinion about the functional aspect of Art in the contemporary age?

Both the book and the YouTube video projection presented in the installation of the photo series “Ra’is El Teiboot” (how to make the coffin dance) integrate the viewer in the work physically, because I thrive to make the most of this interaction with the viewers while articulating my visual thought.

Richter’s remark on communicating art, explains better his use of the verb “used for” in the quote you just presented: “Art serves to establish community. It links us with others and with the things around us.” Only in that sense, I think that the “functional” aspect of art can be implicated.

Thanks a lot for your time and for sharing your thoughts, Myriam. Finally, would you like to tell us readers something about your future projects? How do you see your work evolving?

I’m currently working on two new series: the first “Contemporary Memorial Portraits” in which I explore how time and technology led to the popularization of a sadomasochistic performance, that of taking pictures of dead bodies right after accidents’; and how this once practiced sign of fearless remembrance of the dead -by taking the corpse’s last portrait photograph during the Victorian erahas now shifted to “democratically” exposing pictures of anonymous dead bodies to all.

The second series “Days in Qana” explores the time and space repetitive feature and memory’s relevance and registration mechanism on nearly 106 civilians who lost their lives in the small southern town of Qana in Lebanon after an Israeli airstrike in 1996.

I can’t visualize the progress of my work yet, but I hope I get enough time and exposure to see it evolve.

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