During an artist residency in the Northwest of Iceland in February 2012 I was exploring how nature and landscape influence the identity of people living in them. The results after a first intense research phase showed that sense of place and sense of self are strongly connected with each other. With place I mainly refer to its traditional geographic meaning, but also to a location in the ‘real’ geographical space as opposed to the virtual space. A crucial facet to my research was how the dependency on telecommunicating devices and the virtual space (‘tele-presence’) can disturb the sense of place and the connection to the real or natural landscape. One of the main reasons for this to happen is that sensorial perception is partly excluded when moving in virtuality. Sensing can become a difficult task, as well as the ability to place.
I chose Iceland as the beginning of this research project, because I was intrigued by the way it dealt with the bankruptcy and financial crisis back in 2008. Not only was I persuaded by the persistence for change. Therefore I assumed that there must be a strong bound to the land(scape) inside every Icelander and that it would be a good place to start my research regarding ‘sense of place’ and ‘sense of self’.
I approached Skagaströnd as an outsider. My research could almost have been a scientific field study about a place. Nevertheless I approached it as an artist, collecting stories and images that could inform the onlooker about that specific place, but also giving a departure point for free associations to evolve. All the material I collected was posted daily on a blog I created from the first day of the residency. I collected objects from Skagaströnd and its surroundings, which became part of the installation. They seem somehow displaced from their original context, while they are also holding stories and meanings, connected to the place they come from and creating a sensory approach for the spectator.
This installation consists of the printed version of the blog archive placed on a studio desk together with objects and a desk lamp. The digital photo frames above the desk show the videos posted on the online blog. On the monitor there are interviews shown that I held with residents of Skagaströnd about themes around place and identity. I wanted to create an ‘archive room’ and to give it a ‘retro-look’, a sense of past, which arose once the online archive was printed and ordered in folders and boxes. While delving into the work, the spectator would indirectly become part of the installation.
Barbara Gamper, March 2012
2010Resident Alien/Situation Nr1 is an installation composed of a film with a simultaneous durational live performance. In this performance the characters acting in the film have „come out“ of the screen and inhabit the exhibition space. There is a literal displace- ment happening between the cinematographic space and the exhibition space, which opens up not only a spatial but also a temporal aspect: are these characters coming out of the situation shown in the film or are they about to immerse into it? They seem to belong together as a group. Yet they don’t communicate with each other, certainly not through language. They rather seem connected through their bodies and a sort of ritual they are perform- ing in the place shown in the film or the place of the exhibition space. Their isolation, alienation and sometimes stillness have a strong affect on the spectator and sometimes put their realness into question. Are they human? Past and future unfold and imply the notion of science-fiction, which is subtly drawn upon the relationship between mankind, nature and technology. This transdisciplinary piece of work is touching on issues of displacement and ‘placelessness’ related to virtuality and to the role of the body within virtual topologies. Implicitly it also deals with individuality and uniformity as well as hierarchic structures within a group.
With this piece of work I wanted to relate specifically to the experience of the viewer through the encounter with per- formers as part of an installation outside of the conventional frame of the theater regarding time and the forth wall. The ‘bodies’ are being placed into the exhibition space and building during the entire period of the opening times.
Besides the title refers to the status of foreigners who are permanent residents of a country in which he or her resides but does not obtain the citizenship. Hereby I wanted to stress the attention towards issues regarding migration and immigration and therewith related sense of alienation towards cultural identity and sense of self.
29-02-2040 is a portrait of a situation. It is playing with a hypothetical question: what if virtuality expands into reality to an extent that we no longer will be able to decide where we reside? Some humans, dressed in the exact same way seem to belong to some kind of uniform coded group (they might be the survivors of an apocalypse). They are wandering across a deserted landscape without any clear aim. An elevator belonging to another era is appearing and disappearing in a certain spot, bringing and taking people away, where exactly – we don’t know. It could be a parallel reality, virtuality or another time, passed or future. All of this is happening in the ‘extra day’ of the leap year 2040.
Where is a person when the feeling of cultural belonging is weakened more and more and a sense of powerless- ness due to the loss of both geographical references and identity sets in? This video miniature shows a barren, sur- real landscape which allows no identification due to the lack of details and characteristics and therefore seems to be nowhere and yet everywhere. This space between stands for a passage, which connects the virtual space with a seemingly existing space. Being lost in a social framework is reflected in the personification of a contemporary fugi- tive: a fugitive fleeing from the global movement and communication of today’s society. This fugitive neither be- longs to the social structure nor can he get away from it fully. His human presence experiences no real dimension, but rather a symbolic one and reinforces in the same way the feeling of being lost as well as the question of identity.
Text by Martina Oberprantacher
Work in Progress from the series Chatroom
Wit Isabelle Molina & Hermann Heisig
