“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
View all
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
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
No results found