S(cr)eening Berlin, as Tourist - Lynne Marsh in Conversation with Jennifer Hosek

2014

“S(cr)eening Berlin, as Tourist”
Lynne Marsh in Conversation with Jennifer Hosek, Thursday 7 November, 2013
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario

Internationally-acclaimed artist Lynne Marsh was in residence at the Art Centre from 1 October to 15 November 2013. This is the final in a series of three public discussions, and examines the city of Berlin in relation to Marsh’s body of work, through a dialogue between Marsh and Jennifer Hosek, an Associate Professor of German Studies in Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Queen’s University.

Lynne Marsh’s presence as Visiting Artist in Residence at Queen’s University was developed and produced by the Agnes Etherington Art Centre in partnership with the Cultural Studies Program. We thank the Principal’s Development Fund, administered through the Office of Research Services, for their generous support of this initiative. Other collaborators include the Fine Art Program (Visual Art), the Film and Media Department, the School of Music and the Department of Languages, Literatures & Cultures (German) at Queen’s University, and local, national and international partners: Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, Kingston; Corridor Culture, Kingston; “Programme ICI: Intervenants Culturels Internationaux” at the Université du Québec à Montréal; and the School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire, UK.

aeac.ca”S(cr)eening Berlin, as Tourist”
Lynne Marsh in Conversation with Jennifer Hosek, Thursday 7 November, 2013
Agnes Etherington Art Centre, Kingston, Ontario …

Key moments

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Soundtrack for Stadium
Soundtrack for Stadium
15:31

Soundtrack for Stadium

15:31

Planta Veld
Planta Veld
15:55

Planta Veld

15:55

Collaborating with an Electronic Musician
Collaborating with an Electronic Musician
44:16

Collaborating with an Electronic Musician

44:16

Autogenerated Transcript from YouTube (if available)

Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript​.

0:04

Lin marshes practice lies at the intersection of moving image performance and installation she was born in Canada

0:12

and studied fine art at the undergraduate level at Concordia University in Montreal and at the

0:17

graduate level at Goldsmiths University in London where she received her mfa presently Lynn teaches studio practice

0:25

in the BA and fine art programs at the University of Hertfordshire in the UK her work has been exhibited in solo

0:32

exhibitions internationally at the kunssler house benth on Ian in Berlin at steve turner contemporary in Los Angeles

0:40

at the musée d’art contemporain memorial at danielle arnaud Contemporary Art in

0:46

London and at program in Berlin she’s also shown widely in group exhibitions

0:52

and screenings including amongst many the 10th international istanbul biennial

0:57

the central cultural montr verma so in spain menoth dart 5 in Quebec City and

1:05

the National Gallery of Canada at present Lynn divides her time equally between three cities Montreal where she

1:12

exhibits frequently and is represented by gallery Donald Brown London where she

1:18

teaches and Berlin where she has her studio so tonight linds going to be in

1:24

conversation with Jennifer hosek an associate professor of German studies in languages literature’s and cultures who

1:31

is also affiliated with film and Media Studies cultural studies and the University of Havana Queens exchange

1:38

Jennifer spent many periods in Berlin thanks to a series of fellowships and grants while a doctoral candidate at UC

1:45

Berkeley in comparative literature well a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University and as a faculty member here

1:52

at Queens she is the author of son sex and socialism Cuba in the German

1:57

imaginary published by university of toronto press 2012 her current larger

2:03

projects are lingual I’ve dot CA an open-access eaten and platform that

2:10

facilitates language exchange as well as a monograph on transnational urban cinema

2:16

this evening we’re going to begin with a presentation by Lynn which will include screening of clips of her work Stadium

2:22

and planter vault this is going to be followed by a conversation between Lynne and Jennifer afterwards we’re going to

2:28

have time for questions from the audience so um thanks again Sarah for

2:36

the introduction and thank you jennifer for joining us tonight the discussion we

2:43

seem to have a lot of crossovers and our interests and thinking about contemporary Berlin I’ll start with what

2:50

brought me to Berlin which was a year-long residency at council house battalion in 2006 and 2007 and this is a

2:57

picture of actually the the kunssler house battalion it which was a former

3:04

hospital and I had the studio I was like

3:09

just on the other side of the tower on the second floor behind that those trees so I lived in this amazing building for

3:17

a year and since that time I’ve been making a body of work that is very much

3:23

in dialogue or informed by Berlin as a place I came to Berlin at a time when it

3:28

was already very established as an art world center with artists moving there or living there part-time from all over

3:35

the world this creates a sense of Berlin as a studio or a place a creative a

3:42

place for creative production with a lot of debate and dialogue and time for that

3:49

because the economic imperatives was and still is not nearly as high as other art

3:54

centers Berlin has still relatively cheap studio rent and you know very

4:03

reasonable cost of living it also means that many artists are using the city and

4:08

its contexts for their work cultural and other kinds of institutions are open to

4:15

corporation with artists and that includes musicians and dancers and

4:22

curators Berlin is a city charged if not burdened with his

4:28

three it’s very palpable it’s part of the atmosphere and it was important it’s

4:34

important for me to state that my take on Berlin is the viewpoint of a tourist and post 1989 reality I’m observing and

4:44

responding in my own way to sites and context but interest me the point of

4:51

view of a tourist also allows me a certain kind of freedom an interpretation of sites and situations

4:57

that are informed by their historical past however I’m interested in how they

5:03

are operating socially and politically in the present tense as well this

5:13

evening I’m going to present two works both location-based video works one filmed at the Olympic Stadium completed

5:19

in 1936 during the Third Reich and the second in a former East German amusement

5:25

park planta veld cooter Park which opened in 1969 and operated until

5:31

nineteen eighty nine in both videos work in both video works the sites can be

5:37

understood not only as settings but also as protagonists the camera and in

5:43

particular the camera movement attempts to describe attributes and animate characteristics inciting a

5:50

characterization of the space this is

5:57

inside the Olympic Stadium so when i arrived in july two thousand six berlin

6:02

was hosting the world cup so soccer championship and the olympic stadium was

6:08

on screens throughout the entire city it had undergone a recent refurbishment by the architects gherkin marg and partner

6:16

I had this is a picture of the stadium

6:23

from Leni Riefenstahl Olympia and I’d already been interested in the stadium

6:28

before arriving in Berlin through refrence tiles film this is another

6:36

image kind of sketchy image but those are all bodies

6:42

on the field my residency proposal was to look at how Olympia documenting got

6:49

documenting the 1936 olympic games in the same stadium could be seen as a

6:55

precursor to contemporary cinematic computer-generated imagery i also wanted

7:02

to think about the stadium in a contemporary context i knew that the architects would have worked with a 3d

7:07

model and so i contacted them and they provided me with this virtual model

7:12

which I could then reanimate in a 3d software the architects kept true to the

7:19

integrity of the original design which is a monument of Nazi design but added

7:25

this amazing white roof that makes it look totally sci-fi so this is my

7:33

rendering of their model I decided to create an animated sequence from the

7:39

model as a way to free the stadium from its particular locality to turn it into

7:44

an object moving in space and to enter it through the virtual or another future

7:53

so here also to short clips the first

7:59

one the opening sequence

11:14

okay the second sequence is a little further along

13:51

you

14:22

so on location we use this camera crane that allowed us to create movement

14:27

similar to the 3d camera and two pointer techniques favored by Riefenstahl including the crane shot and long

14:34

traveling circling shots the bird’s-eye view on the enormous seating blocks

14:40

conveys a strong sense of the building’s hierarchical structuring which had been

14:45

designed with the aim of organizing crowds a figure in a white tracksuit

14:52

enters the scene underlining the standardized and absolute uniformity of

14:58

the architecture and the anonymity a non

15:03

amenity of the individual within it then

15:10

she slowly starts striding over the seats going against the oppressive functionality of the architect

15:15

architectural surroundings increasingly her movements shipped from pedestrian

15:23

movement of public space towards a choreography reminiscent of early Olympic calisthenic designs and dances

15:30

the soundtrack for stadium was composed by Stephan naman an electronic musician

15:37

from Vienna using his original music and recordings that we made on-site he

15:43

describes an animus pneus to the site and the tension between the figure and

15:49

the architecture the next circle shows

15:55

planta veld which was shot in the autumn of 2009 and completed in 2010 this piece

16:02

is about 20 minutes and here I’ll show a clip of about four minutes

20:14

this is an installation image from the National Gallery of Canada and so the

20:20

video is projected onto a large freestanding wooden screen that’s

20:25

reminiscent of a drive-in theater screams lightly scaled down and the

20:31

viewer sits on these bleacher like benches so they’re kind of low in the

20:37

space and the image is looming down towards the viewer and the screen and

20:43

the bench is also point to this kind of outdoor architecture of the amusement park okay a little backstory i

20:53

discovered the park like many berlin tourists while in a bike ride along the

20:59

spa day it’s an abandoned gdr former East German amusement park just along the east side of truck tow Park not far

21:07

from the Soviet monument if you know that part of Berlin and what you see

21:13

from the bike path is a fenced off forested area with some glimpses of very unusual architecture swan boats

21:20

dinosaurs and this iconic ferris wheel and on first sight it feels like you’ve

21:26

found this sort of lost land or some kind of contemporary ruin the separation

21:34

of these worlds is also very precarious with a kind of flimsy fence and of course what happens is a lot of people

21:40

hop the fence and go explore and in order to prevent people from trespassing

21:45

into the park or catching people once they do a security company has been hired to keep people out I didn’t hop

21:55

the fence although very tempted but I immediately thought that I wanted to do

22:00

some research and see if i could find the official channels or gain permission to to get into the site I did however go

22:09

back a lot to see if I could catch glimpses of the guards almost interested

22:16

in modern monetary them they were sort of policing the park the

22:23

park opened in 1969 as co2 Park plant availed and was a popular amusement park

22:28

for East Berliners and East Germans through the 70s and 80s after unification the park was privatized the

22:35

least was the lease was sold to mr. Vita and at the same time planter though which is a kind of larger area than just

22:42

the park was declared a nature sanctuary and from my understanding of the

22:47

contract the local municipality still owns and regulates the land however Mr

22:54

Vita owns the least of the park under mr. Vita while the park was renamed play

22:59

park and due to a complexity of issues including land use restrictions economic

23:08

development and management issues by 2001 the park was bankrupt and closed

23:16

then a crazy story follows where mr. vitta abandons the park takes off to

23:22

Peru with a few rides telling the authorities that he’s going to open know

23:28

that he’s having the rights fixed he tries to open the park the nuts and

23:35

bolts are not the same sort of standard so that fails and then he ends up being

23:41

caught smuggling drugs in the rides back to Germany so and there’s a great

23:50

documentary on him called off the bone so he goes to prison and the park stand

24:00

dormant for seven years so during that time is the city officials and creditors

24:07

take charge of the park hire security company to safeguard the site this is to

24:13

protect them and the public from the collapsing architecture in 2008 mr. Vita

24:18

was released from prison the bankruptcy proceedings withdrawn and the

24:23

um please return to him what I found

24:31

fascinating the story and in my research into the current state of the park in 2009 was this sense of its preservation

24:38

as a failed monument or failed project after unification the unstable and

24:44

multi-layered identity of the German capital produced some failed market

24:49

economy experiments of which spray park or plant availed was one the collapsing

24:55

the collision of two political systems in East and West Germany created a

25:00

number of dead zones or no men no man’s lands in the city sights awaiting

25:06

capitalization some of which never succeeded planta veld is still stuck in

25:12

this moment and stands as a remnant of his collision it embodies the status between these two political systems the

25:20

starting point for the work was the idea of the parks persistence to exist and in the sense to attempt to describe the

25:27

being of the park as a kind of character I was interested in the separation and cut off pneus from public space and the

25:35

futility of its policing my successful entry into the park was through the

25:41

security company the company had not been paid for its services since the Lee’s had been returned to mr. Gaeta

25:47

they were however hanging in there in the hopes that new investors would be found and a huge contract would come

25:54

their way so for a fee I was able to gain access and found the guards founds

26:00

and guards who agreed to participate as actors the question for me became how to

26:08

perform how to perform the present condition of the park via the guards and

26:14

by the camera so these are images from google earth i began looking at the top

26:21

of topography of the park its spatial design and the way in which bodies are directed to navigate in a kind of

26:28

constant looping circular way through the site

26:36

with my director of photography we began to look for an apparatus that we could use to generate camera movement that

26:42

would in a sense rien scribe this topography and what we found was a pole

26:50

cam a lightweight pole with tiny lith the tiny lens at the end that could be

26:55

remotely controlled the pole could swing in all directions and the lens could pan up and down and turn 360 degrees to

27:04

allow us to make these surreal camera movements the filming then became a

27:11

series of experiments in multi camera perspectives and movements that would embody different subjectivity these

27:20

included tracking shots that create a series of hovering and suspended camera movements traveling shorts so sometimes

27:29

the camera is traveling parallel to the guards or following the guards to the

27:35

park as they kind of trace out this topography and fixed shots or panning

27:42

shots where there’s a sense of observation surveillance or spying the

27:48

soundscape is made from recordings on site and was composed to immerse the viewer in the forest park and to create

27:55

a sense of unease and suspense with any out without any kind of reveal and if

28:02

you know tarkovsky’s stalker you’ll see strong references to the cinematic language which also describes a zone or

28:09

otherworldly space so in both planta

28:15

veld and stadium I’m trying to speak to a sense of indeterminacy and open-endedness and unresolved using the

28:23

suspended and hovering camera as well as show a temporal progression in as well

28:28

as a slow temporal progression in the montage to describe a moment before things happen or not or potentially

28:36

explode so I was I was actually struck by well

28:41

so many things but you were talking about so you’re talking about the way

28:47

that the photography in the stadium was was reminiscent of that of riefenstahl

28:54

in the kind of power and then with the ruins of plant abad there’s so much

29:00

green and I was reminded of benja means or and I was similar it’s really more

29:06

similar who talks about the way that nature cat overcomes the ruin both

29:14

civilization that there’s the fight between civilization in nature and and I

29:20

thought while the stadium in such perfect condition and plant about sort of succumbing to the greenery and I

29:29

wondered if you wanted to talk about two things in regards to that one there are two very different histories right and

29:36

the reclaiming of the histories are so different on one hand the fascist past and then we reuse that in some ways is

29:46

very different in some ways is very similar because sports for example has a

29:51

kind of a you know there are some ways in which it it reminds us of mass mass

30:00

mass rallies and sort of that emotion right so kind of frightening but then on

30:06

the other hand brings people together wink since I it has those two sides and and then in

30:14

in this case is this kind of nothing happening kind of moment so that whether

30:19

you see I if you could talk about those differences yeah and also what it was like to fill in those places and to be

30:26

there yeah I mean I think that was the thing that really that struck me the most is what it was actually like to be

30:32

in those spaces because they’re they’re

30:37

equally is intense although as you say very different what’s amazing about the

30:42

stadium is that I actually filmed it in color and it really you know it looks like a black and white film it’s it’s

30:49

totally grey and there’s no advertising and there’s no color in the seat so um

30:58

you know the only color is the pitch but of course I don’t I don’t show you the

31:06

details like Coke skills and on the stairs become like really

31:13

important really strong presence of humans I mean to rub ya interrupting

31:21

that space so um it’s a very powerful

31:28

scary to see which is also exciting

31:40

I’ll try putting the mic closer is that ok so the I was saying that in the

31:49

stadium I I’ve been to see football games in the stadium and you know they

31:54

hurt to Berlin has a very expressive fan

31:59

club and they when they start pounding their feet and clapping in unison it’s

32:05

quite terrifying and of course you know planta veld is the opposite it’s it’s

32:12

overwhelmingly full of details and rust and create you know scratches on

32:20

surfaces and but it was and it was also it was more of a magical place to be

32:26

really felt like you were in I mean in both sense you kind of feel like you’re in a museum in some ways but they also

32:36

have a strong sense of presence like plentiful is a place where kids break in

32:42

and have parties and more and more it’s you know it’s if you Google’s play park

32:50

you’ll see images all over the internet it’s becoming this kind of cult II site

32:56

so it still has a kind of present

33:01

reincarnation way yeah so both spaces

33:07

were amazingly I mean you feel I felt privileged to be in those spaces

33:12

actually the comment that you make about

33:18

the people breaking in and having parties reminds me of your comment at

33:24

the beginning when you were talking about you said you said Berlin as a studio and I was thinking about how

33:32

artists participated we had talked about this actually artist participate in in

33:37

Berlin at at that this moment where it’s still between the the well the time you

33:46

know the open sort of openness geographically and and in terms of just the sheer number of

33:54

people that were there and in terms of capital that was there with the fog you know with the father of the wall and

33:59

then the what will be Berlin when you when it becomes a the kind of metropol

34:06

that exists in all of Western Europe with basically not much space for people

34:16

to interact if they don’t have a lot of capital basically and it made me think

34:24

about so so that and so the term in German of Azad swishing notes on like

34:29

it’s a dud between like a use between

34:34

two different at least for myself was

34:40

tricked into arted going

34:49

so these this kind of city where everybody can live and everybody can express themselves in independent of who

34:56

they are wow it’s it’s just great and only to find out that actually it was

35:02

just sushi note song and it’s going away there’s this kind of fight going on and so as you pointed out Lander belt is

35:10

going to go away at some point well maybe they’ll be big hole heiser big

35:16

skyscrapers built there we were talking I’ve been referencing my class because we were talking about the Frankfurt

35:23

squatting squatting movement and but my question is where do artists participate

35:30

in that yes well I’ll come back to your question I want to say that as one of

35:37

the things that I’ve observed I mean in terms of this in-between space you’re talking about and it’s really that’s

35:43

that’s been very exciting to see in Berlin because there is a kind of like a slow-motion it’s like it like

35:50

capitalization is just just a little bit slower and you see it happening and I think because of the contested histories

35:57

around a lot of these sites there is a lot of hesitation that the Senate the

36:02

Senate is kind of like presenting miss municipality government’s level there

36:09

they’re very hesitant they’re being the lobby groups are you know very strong

36:14

and there’s a kind of cultural imperative especially in Berlin there

36:21

was a lot of criticism when the wall came down sort of too quickly or disappeared too quickly and so you know

36:28

this there is this kind of it’s interesting because you can sort of see things better because it’s slowed down I

36:36

think a lot of artists are interacting with that in a number of ways I think

36:41

there’s people making work about that so

36:47

I’m I’m definitely not the only one and there’s a lot of summer schools like

36:55

right now I was doing some research on on plaintiff L sort of like to find out

37:01

okay what’s what what are the plans there’s still no development or new investors but there’s a artist group who

37:10

have started having these summer schools there to rethink they’re trying to keep

37:16

it as a kind of contemporary ruin and to look for ways to interact with it culturally is just said set up sort of

37:26

workshops in it or you know and so so there’s exhibitions being held in former

37:36

bunkers there’s this hardly there’s not that many actually strong art

37:41

institutions to show work so what happens is a lot of these spaces end up

37:48

being also taken over by artists or by curators or or institutions like the

37:55

Berlin biannual which will then how’s work in all these other sites and so so

38:02

it’s a kind of occupation so it’s becoming a physical sight and and a

38:07

cancer in a conceptual site do you think that there’s among artists for example

38:14

political organizing that’s happening in order to avoid having those kinds of

38:19

sound very beautiful opportunities to being co-opted by by investors in the

38:28

sense that when the when areas become hip then the one can command a higher

38:37

price so I don’t know whether mr. Vita is going to show up at some point when

38:42

once it’s a very hip area in order to sell to somebody yeah it’s thinking

38:48

about there’s so much resistance so that it’s unbelievable like in on my street

38:53

in Russian burgers placer they made a which is west courts burg so it’s kind

38:59

of a it’s always been a very leftist neighborhood and it has really strong community groups so they built a

39:12

luxury condo where you could drive your car in and then would like go up an

39:17

elevator and stuff and there’s a cafe beside it and they have to post a security guard in front of this building

39:23

24 hours because people have vandalized have written all over this building have

39:29

spit on people in the cafes and its really really it’s more radical than

39:35

anywhere else I’ve seen in Europe in terms of this aunty or against this

39:40

gentle Cashin I don’t know how long that can resist but it’s certainly there in a

39:48

strong way um I think I don’t know I

39:54

maybe I want to be optimistic they turn the tempelhof airfield into one of the

40:03

biggest parts i’ve ever seen and you can literally ride your bike or rollerblade

40:08

down this runway you know I’m hoping

40:14

that they’re still in resistance I’m hoping that this doll resistant I wonder

40:19

whether there are different this is a bit of a topic shift but whether you’ve noticed any differences in the reception

40:26

of your work among people who are more from the east it you know or more from

40:33

the West trained and then also interest me whether British audiences are see

40:39

that your work differently than say German audiences yeah well I think

40:44

German artist audiences would definitely see the work differently but when I showed in 2008 I showed a stadium in Los

40:52

Angeles and people read it as being read

40:58

it sort of through the context of New Orleans and that you know people were

41:03

housed and stay you know so I think depends on how much

41:10

you know people read a text before they see a work they’re going to make

41:15

whatever connections that they can to places that they know so i think that

41:22

the work reads more directly in terms of its specific references to a German

41:29

audience or audience who are you know familiar with these places that I hope

41:35

it speaks to broader audiences Easton

41:41

west um it’s hard to say I don’t trying

41:50

to think of who when I was at patan yin one of the technicians and sort of

41:55

friend of mine wasn’t East East German and yeah probably but I haven’t I do I

42:03

I’d have to do more of a survey to find out I have I couldn’t tell you exactly mm-hmm I’m concerned a little bit about

42:10

time for the audience but I guess that the what I was thinking about was also something that we had talked about in

42:15

preparation for this talk which was the question of which which histories of

42:21

Berlin remain present in the city after the changes and which ones go into decay

42:29

and which ones are are reconstructed

42:34

let’s say and we were talking about the palace tetas public for example which was an East German building that was

42:41

demolished and that was what I wondered I guess more specifically whether there

42:46

might be East Germans who you know we’re kids going to be revived and how that

42:51

would how they would feel about seeing a film like this when it seems like their history is so frequently being erased

42:58

yes absolutely that I think that that would be that’s really true so the powers of the people that the pastor of

43:04

a public was a site that’s right on the right in this near Alexander Platz right

43:10

in the center of Berlin and when I arrived in Berlin in 2006 it was also a kind of a huge event

43:18

of the media because they were deciding to tear this down and so for me the

43:23

difference between the plan de Velde and that site was very significant in that

43:30

plant availed was a kind of monument of failure that was in some way allowed to remain but this kind of very successful

43:40

symbol of socialism that was in the middle of the city had to be torn down

43:45

and and there was a there was a lot of

43:51

yeah a lot of resistance to that and artists were actually using that space

43:57

for four exhibitions before it it was torn down so yeah yeah I would say that

44:03

would be you know a fair assessment yeah what questions do we have from our

44:10

audience Glyn I was wondering if you could speak a bit about the sound in

44:16

stadium you talked a bit about collaborating with an electronic musician and I think obviously the sound

44:21

is a key component of the effect of that piece so could you just speak a bit about your collaboration there yeah um I

44:27

i wanted i wanted stadium to have music more wealth a kind of combination of

44:33

music and and a bit of ambience or sound

44:39

recorded on site because i was trying to make this link between the kind of

44:45

digital an old analog I wanted the soundtrack to feel electronic and contemporary and so

44:51

I I actually went I have a friend who is the director of a one of the music

44:59

festivals and Berlin and so I was showing him some material and I asked him you know genius some people that I

45:05

could work with and he suggested a couple of people and I looked them up and looked at what they were doing

45:10

already and Stefan naman was was really somewhat you know his some of the sounds

45:17

he was making and how he’s was working with son but something that was interested in so um and he was making

45:22

frequent trips to Berlin so we sat down together and I mean my in direction I

45:31

guess a little bit was I I wanted the opening sequence I really wanted to reference like space odyssey you know

45:37

kind of 2001 so I wanted strings I wanted to have those strings I also

45:44

talked a lot about Hitchcock and that kind of tension and that sort of pitch that Hitchcock has so to create that

45:51

sort of suspense and tension we use just

45:57

the ambient recording of the whatever air systems that were there the flip up

46:04

seats so that sort of it sounds like it’s her footstep but it’s around her

46:11

footstep but it’s not her first that it’s just the seat ripping up um yeah so

46:17

so it’s really his composition but my notes Lynn I’m wondering how you

46:26

negotiate your time between Montreal berlin and london how does that look on

46:32

a yearly basis well I I’m teaching

46:41

part-time in london but st i teach on a studio in

46:47

practice program that it’s it’s not the same as as here we don’t have courses in

46:53

the same way so I can punch up day so I have intensive days with my students and then I have time off so i might be back

47:00

and forth every 10 days where every two

47:05

weeks or so depending montreal it often

47:11

is I’m there for projects I also do a lot of my post production in material i have an editor that i work with but i

47:17

really love working with and there’s good i don’t know if you know about prim

47:22

it’s a kind of artist one Center where you can do offline or online and it has

47:29

a sounds to use weight so I go and work there often too and I work with a gallery there and I have friends there

47:35

so and yeah I it changes all the time

47:40

I’m maybe three times a year in Canada and back and forth between the other two

47:49

do you find it exhausting or do you find it that it’s um it’s works to make your

47:55

work more vibrant yeah I mean I know I don’t know how long I will it could all

48:01

change again I don’t um I find that when i get i take these cheap flights between

48:11

London and Berlin and when i get on easyjet i feel like i’m going into the studio I I kind of can it’s it helps me

48:18

separate the kind of work that I have to do and I tried otherwise I think anybody

48:25

knows who’s teaching it’s like can be all-consuming never-ending your email you know so it’s it’s nice to have these

48:31

kind of really performative psychological barriers in a way it’s

48:38

very expensive to keep a studio in London it’s very you know Montreal has

48:44

amazing post production facilities and and my practice is really kind of based

48:49

and comes out of there and still spot you know funded by calc and so I i’m

48:54

still a resident there it’s home i’m not i’m not going to be a british artist or

49:00

a german artist I’m a Canadian artist I’m a Quebec artist so yeah so I need to

49:09

keep that it’s it’s a temporal thing now I could add another could you could all

49:17

change I’ll just wondering about the bigger in stadium was there a specific

49:24

reason why you chose to figure it to be a female brother or not yeah yeah um

49:33

honestly it’s because I used to be a performer in my own work and stadium is

49:38

the first work where I used another performer and I tried to look for

49:44

someone that could maybe look like me but she doesn’t really look like me her places but just the her but like I I

49:51

don’t but not that I really wanted that person to be me but i think i was looking I think I understood how a

50:01

female body could perform because i was working i was doing a lot of performance in my own work and so that’s what’s

50:08

easier for me to think about working with with a woman i also wanted to work

50:13

with a dancer she’s a dancer because I could never or you know like the strength that it took to walk over those

50:19

seats was pretty incredible and she’s doing it like it’s nothing but it’s actually quite in 10 I was there last

50:26

night and then looking at your work today there’s something about the clarity and the strength of the images

50:32

in the focus like there’s a place in the the second images where there’s grass

50:37

it’s also a derelict and there’s these blades of grass that just are outstanding and is that always your

50:45

style to be so crisp is the word I can think of but I apologize because I really don’t know what the words are to

50:51

use but there’s something about how you look at things that’s very clean

50:56

oh ok um hmm well I think stadium is

51:04

very formal in its framing and and

51:09

probably the cleanest in that sense planta veld yeah I guess there are these

51:17

sort of pictorial or beautiful shots but there’s also the wide angle on the on

51:25

the little pole cam lens which does a kind of distortion and last night in I

51:32

think it kind of varies last night in the bruckner piece you know that the two

51:38

bottom screens are hardly ever in focus and you know kind of wandering around and you know the top ones are fixed and

51:46

still so they’re they’re clean and crisp but um but the heads are also moving out of frame I don’t know why I don’t think

51:52

it’s so uniform necessarily but but

51:59

maybe I have a yeah maybe I have an instinctual I’m looking for some kind of

52:06

balance in the frame yeah maybe it’s more about the power of the images than

52:11

the Christmas that I’m front get it but there’s something very powerful in some

52:17

of the ways things look mm-hmm so maybe you could talk about power in the

52:24

context of your work ok well i think

52:31

there’s yeah i think there’s different ways and the power of the image or the power because i think there’s different

52:37

ways i’m playing with power and hierarchies in in the sites like in some

52:44

ways this may be in plant about the the

52:50

the guards are disempowered in some way

52:56

because they’re sort of standing around bored walking around not not doing

53:03

very much I don’t know that the images for me feel like they’re about power but

53:12

there is a sort of diffusion of authority in a way or a kind of pointlessness to it maybe in the

53:23

Bruckner piece in the film on EPS there’s a sort of switch in the hierarchal a system so instead of you

53:29

seeing what you would normally see like the musicians on the stage you’re seeing this you know you’re seeing the kind of

53:36

technical team background as as the as the main event and so maybe in a sense

53:42

I’m elevating I’m photographing them in a way that elevates their status there’s

53:50

one of the things maybe that it comes across and maybe this is something i don’t know this is maybe something that

53:55

you’re referring to is that there’s all very often a limited frame of a limited view so you don’t really ever get even

54:02

implant availed you don’t really get so that maybe that’s something that’s more

54:08

signature is that that is that I i I’m very tight in the frame you don’t have a

54:14

oldest notice and plentiful this one shot you didn’t see it there’s one shot where you see something that you see a

54:20

bit more of an open plain but normally the the view is is more narrow ISM is

54:25

tighter and and that kind of creates a sort of abstraction in a way so you

54:32

don’t ever get the whole picture yeah

54:38

that means is your question not sure it’s a question that really doesn’t end I just I have a feeling of a

54:43

sense of purpose that you have a sense of purpose that you really communicate to me as a watcher well that’s good well

54:52

I yeah I mean I think I tried to talk about that invited maybe wasn’t

54:57

difficult a super clear but that that i do have particular ideas in terms of how

55:04

I’m framing a site and how trying what I’m trying to maybe get across through that frame so i talked about the sort of

55:12

hovering in suspense suspension of the cameras also being connected to this

55:17

maybe sense of indeterminacy or unresolved about the the nature of those

55:22

spaces so those are those are maybe some of the things that I’m thinking about when I’m when I think about how the

55:29

camera moves or how to frame it in the

55:35

back

55:47

what I through the literature that it’s

55:53

coming to us as members and what I thought I got from the preamble it was

56:02

that it’s a tourist view of Berlin and I

56:08

here as a tourist yes and an ancient so

56:14

probably what the students are seeing there is totally different from what I

56:21

see because when the left stadium on all

56:28

I saw was the third grade and soldiers marching with a thinking straight ahead

56:37

no no emotion no nothing and you’re one

56:43

person was some person still wanting to break that pattern and going to any mess

56:52

of a could think of despite all that regimentation another great reading lots

56:58

about totally disturbing mm-hmm but beautiful artwork but it just took me

57:05

back to that period sure yeah no I don’t know if that’s what you thought we were

57:10

doing that thats related to me yes and then to the park well I think if you’re in

57:20

Berlin is interest I see German persons are still trying to figure out who they

57:26

are that’s moving because you’re still east and west whether your plot is one

57:33

now and when you look up there’s still

57:39

got you came with everything falling down her before but the persistent

57:45

growth and beauty which was beyond imagination and they don’t know what to

57:52

do with it until early in the past present and potential future the thing

58:00

went and ruined it all only because you put those guards in there so that didn’t

58:08

let me get away it took away my whole right up the old stuff was falling down

58:16

and all this beauty was coming up but still there are birds marching like in

58:23

more time everywhere watching watching watching yep so I don’t know if you

58:29

realize the power of what you’ve done but if you would show that to people of

58:36

different age generations I think you would get a totally different response

58:41

from each depending on where you find so

58:46

no no your your your your observations are amazing and they’re right on um you

58:54

know the the eye lemme beauties I love to triumph of the will I love that films that showed you

59:02

know marching soldiers and I news you know eat the minute you go that’s day and that’s what you see that’s what

59:08

everybody sees and when I when I use the word tourists it’s because that’s what I see when I couldn’t stay in i use the

59:14

word tourists because i don’t oh I don’t all not history in a sense that I’m I’m

59:20

not from there I can grow up there I didn’t know so so I’m coming in is

59:25

outside are making these observations but but what we’re saying is is absolutely true and absolutely part you

59:32

know the content of the work um just the

59:38

comment on the guards yes they ruin it but but they’re there they’re part of

59:46

the space so it for me that was also kind of interesting because the guards

59:53

are not if the guards are not diffused so in the way that the that there’s a

1:00:01

presence of the guards in the stadium through the through the seeding which really replicates those rows and rows of

1:00:06

soldiers or even replicates the Jewish monument if you’ve seen the Jews one

1:00:12

with monument in Berlin which is these sort of stocks of grey Marvel I guess so

1:00:18

the guards aren’t in they have no order they have you know their their their

1:00:25

powers been kind of yeah diffused so so

1:00:30

from that that was my choice too and also because they sort of are part of that space that was my choice to keep

1:00:37

them no no you can see her in the world maybe

1:00:43

you’re right thank you for your comments yeah

1:01:04

you

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