Close to Home

Michaela sees and feels spaces that are a personal abstract inner presentation of the outer world. They have depth, colors, shapes and temperature, and change with every situation she finds herself in. These places of meaning and emotions are a part of her as much as her hands and just as useful: she finds orientation in them; they feel like home. Her synaesthesia might only get tiring when the room she sees is too uncomfortable but cannot avoid the situation that provokes it. Things get to her no matter what.

This video piece combines two types of images. One is an interview with Michaela in which she talks about her synaesthesia and what it means for her. The frame shows her forehead and the empty space above her head. The other images are an attempt of finding possible visualizations of these inner rooms, by exploring and perceiving my physical home from another perspective: extremely close. So close that my home and belongings loose definition and become something else.

In the fun process of making this piece and getting to know each other, we discovered that our understanding of the world is very similar, with or without rooms.

This project was part of Cross Senses, a project and exhibition linking artists and synaesthetes curated by Larissa Wunderlich

p.nass cloak, the amusement of 3

Collaboration with Jess Mac and Zoe Kreye.

Enjoy the new abstract porn!

Celebrating Hilton Square. Conversations in Silence part 2. Nairobi, Kenya

As part of Conversations in Silence  (a five month research project with Bauhaus University MFA alumni  and Kenyan artists hosted by the Goethe Institute in Nairobi 01.10.10-28.02.11) “Irene Izquierdo (ESP) worked site-specifically, choosing to commemorate a space rather than a time. Over the two weeks before the exhibition Irene visited Hilton Square daily, observing the way people interacted and did ‘business’. Perceiving this space as playing a unique role within the city, she orchestrated the performance ‘Celebrating Hilton Square’. This featured a selection of individuals from the square who honored the space in various ways including poems, songs and written texts. These have been collected in a small booklet which serves as a memory to the event, and a commemoration of the space.” Sam Hopkins

The work starts with favoring and helping perpetrate the intangible cultural heritage of the square by using the same strategies of making business and networking that occur there.

The installation consisted of the video documenting the event, towers of booklets and plants resembing the atmosphere at the so called “Hilton Square”.

 

Tropical Scapes #1

Tropical Scapes #1, 09-2010.
Enjoyment piece. How to integrate in a tropical landscape… indoors.

Off-guard. KW, 1. OG. 6BB.

OFF-GUARD. KW 1.OG, BB6. 5’ 15’’ video piece / performance, 2010

In the summer 2010, I was one of the guards of the Berlin Biennale 6. During one of my shifts, I did a performance dismissing my duty as guard. The act consisted on facing one of the walls of the so called “White Cube” room (1st floor) in the KW Institute for Contemporary Art during 5 min, until my alarm clock rang.

The video piece consists of the documentation of this performance with text showing the compiled thoughts and observations about my condition as a performing guard, the visitors usual behaviour and the visitors turning into performers in this particular space in which there are no other works to look at. This video tries to blur the categorization of the 3 elements one can find in a museum or exhibition space: art, audience and guards.

This work has been supported by With Re-Guards; shown in July 2010 at the exhibition space of the Berlin Biennale Satellite Projects in Dresdenerstr. 14 and in December 2010 – January 2011 at the Fundación Antonio Saura in Cuenca, Spain, as part of the exhibition Ilusión y Realidad, invited by the Museo Patio Herreriano de Arte Contemporáneo Español, Valladolid, Spain.

Sala 8 Absurd Hiding

Absurd hiding in Sala 8 (Esperando que nada pase en 2 actos de 20 min) Valladolid, Spanien.2009

Trying to take the absurd hiding into other locations other than public space, I performed 2 acts of 20 min inside of the museum of contemporary art in Valladolid, Museo Patio Herreriano. By this I was trying to avoid behaving as a visitor, but being inside of the museum already turned me into a piece of art, whereas, when I performed absurd hiding in the streets, people were scared thinking I was crazy and even calling the police.

The documentation takes the form of a 20 min video piece in which we can read thoughts and questions on what occurs in the space due to my action.

Play video to watch the 1st min. of the action.

-At least no one will think that I am crazy or will call an ambulance.

-I’m trying not to be a visitor, but it seems impossible not to become something else.

Our Daily Bread and It was about time

Our daily bread and  Es war die Zeit.

Weimar 2007-2008

Our daily bread is a video piece (33′) dealing with the normalized act of reading a newspaper or watching the news, and how as passive viewers, we poison ourselves everyday without changing any facts.

While reading the news, some parts are taken and eaten. The text of the selected piece appears on the screen and fades away slowly until it is completely swallowed.

Es war die Zeit is a video installation at the K&K Kiosk. To watch the video inside the Kiosk, Our daily bread, one has to look through newspaper wholes. After a while one realizes that we are looking through the voids left by the action of eating the newspaper.