ART Habens Art Review, Spring Special Issue

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

ACHIEL JONES URIEL ZIV JANA CHARL MIGUEL AZUAGA ROY HAHARY SARAH SAYEED RICHARD ZEISS RENANA ALDOR GILSUK KO Comfort Distance, video-performance, 05:12, 2015 A work by Gilsuk Ko

ART

ART

H A B E N S C o n t e m p o r a r y

A r t

R e v i e w

Richard Zeiss

Jana Charl

Miguel Azuaga

Uriel Ziv

Roy Harary

United Kingdom

USA

Germany

Israel

Israel

United Kingdom

Michael Fried once said 'The materials do not represent, signify, or allude to anything; they are what they are and nothing more.' My interest here is twofold: how barren of referents can material vision become? And how and where can the viewing subject be kept close to the threshold where material vision turns into phenomenal vision? Paul de Man, re-reading Kant’s Third Critique, suggests the notion of pure material vision – a kind of vision that exists before phenomenality 'occurs'; however, he comes from the text. How does this relate to painting, and can it relate at all?

My creative practice involves exploring different media and techniques around testing the boundaries of what defines contemporary art, including the blurring of the traditional lines dividing craft, commercial art, and fine art. I am a passionate storyteller inspired by the raw materials, experiences, and observations that I collect.

In my mixed media works, I disrupt the canvas surface by cutting, weaving, sewing, and incorporating unexpected elements. By appropriating the inherent histories of found objects, I add additional layers of meaning and humor to my artwork. I represent words with graphic bars in order to focus on the visual experience; allow for individualized interpretations; and circumvent language barriers.

Fascinated by the challenge to capture the human form in a universal way, I stylize the curves that define and distinguish women.

I choose universal features over unique ones, employing minimalism to promote a sense of relatability, accessibility, and engagement. In the current times, many aspects of our lives are void of a human connection; incorporating bodies in my work is an intention for association, to personalize matters which are analyzed abstractly.

I address current issues and seek to evoke thought on perceptions biased by preconceptions. Feminist issues, perceptions of women’s roles, identity, and gender relationships are key themes weaving my work together.

During one of his last trips to Spain in 2014, Miguel Azuaga found documents of his grandfather, participant of a migration wave of the Francoist dictatorship's last period in 1960.

Not long afterwards he began a research of his own identity through old documents to somehow figure out his current status as an immigrant. Towards the Other stands immersed in the conflict of a constant to-and-fro that fuses past and present, where its function is to agglutinate different temporal spaces. The words journey or quest are substitutes for another and perhaps more explicit term, migration, whose presence in this project is obvious in the references to borders and the use of original passport files and images, thus establishing the link or connection to a past journey at which we now look askance.

History repeats itself, but so do stories, and here the two trade places to become a metaphor for the act of migration. Searching for our identity in others and drawing comparisons are two common reactions when we feel insecure and disorientated. It creates an objective point of reference, a standard, something fixed we can use to determine if we are headed in the right direction in this near-total absence of fixed parameters of a present-day society.

We live in an era of screens, surrounding us constantly throughout our days, throughout our lives, a plethora of electronic devices is engulfing us in the public sphere as well as the private one, in the street, and in our own pockets.

The personal screens we all own contain within in them – in their digital memories, cloud storages, and social network databases – fractures of our multiple identities. Identities that are constantly constructed and reconstructed, copied, pasted, transformed and transfigured in the various online media platform in which we engage with.

As an artist I am fascinated by this connection between man and screen, a connection that is both physical as well as metaphysical. The physical aspects can be demonstrated by bodily engagements – the hand engages with the smartphone; the finger engages with the screen; our facial expression engage with the camera as we take a selfie. The metaphysical aspects are somewhat more elusive, but just as present - the mirror reflection on a “black” switched off screen; the metamorphosis that undergoes the character between the moment of the photograph snapshot to the moment in which it is exhibited and manifested in social media; the duel identity and presence of a person both in a physical spatiotemporal realm as well as a representational virtual cyber realm.

These aspects take a stronger hold in me, as I recollect my youth in an extremely orthodox Jewish house hold.

A house hold with no computer, no television, and no expression of the new technology but rejection and general fear. This blockade enforced on me by the educating figures in my early life has driven me towards a total fascination with these forbidden screen.

My artistic practice is rooted in the observation of the construction of my identity in relation to the constantly shifting cultural and political landscape of Israel, the country in which I was born and raised. For my generation of Israelis who grew up during the late 80’s, as the country transitioned from socialism to capitalism, from zionism to post-zionism, the zionist dream was challenged and criticized, and a previously embraced dominant narrative of nationhood and cultural pride was put to question. I experienced this transition through popular media: television, movies, magazines, etc. It impacted me deeply and lead to my current critical perspective how ideological frameworks impact not only the society we live in but our very own formation as individuals.

I am committed to explore at large relationships between media and ideology, to challenge dominant ideas and to better understand representation as a tool that articulates subjectivities, bodies, affects and desires. Working in video, photography, performance and installation, I use text and visual language from popular media such as YouTube, news broadcasts and TV as source materials for my work.

Once translated into the fictionalized realm of my final work, the conventions of the source material gets disrupted in order to diverge from common expectations, exploring their own language to create cracks in its ideologically determined narrative.

Recent projects have addressed the ideological frameworks of collective memories as expressed in analogue frameworks such as museums, commemorative monuments, or encyclopedias and in my more recent work dives into digital platforms as a sight of a new generations’ consciousness formation.

My work takes a look at the Church of modern life; Hollywood. Currently talks are taking place regarding the discrimination against women in the industry, Maggie Gyllenhall has just been turned down a role as she is 37, which is too old for the 54 year old actor playing her lover. Hollywood has been responsible for the allowing of females to full fill roles and stereotypes of perfection since it began, legitimising the subservience of the female role, and it has worked very well. The prescription of sexualised female roles is actually not an issue to do with gender but with class and economic pressures. In the 1900's in the mines, naked females were used as bait to keep the miners going. thery were sent down the mines to excite the workers ,and to keep them going. The modern 'pervert' is is a key theme in my work.

Social pressures of the worker have achieved total anhialation of the male species, and the female is punished for his decapitation. The Paedophile , the rapist, the child molester, the murderer , the burgerler have they're punishements, and theyre taboo status, but remove the markers from the map, and take a look at where they are placed. The repression and behaviours of the masses rely on the structures they stand on. these must be iradicated. To relate to each other we rely on hyperreality, our currency is a promise, and is un tangible, we are increasingly moving further and further away from the object itself, and our bodies in the process, this can be seen in the morbidly obese, and the mother staring at her phone whilst feeding her child. We are in a time where not only is the real being replaced with the hyperreal, but the hyperreal has become a sign.

Material collisions / alchemy: the materials I use such as tarpaulin (industrial production) or egg tempera (connotation: medieval religious painting) may ultimately cancel each other out, with their individual phenomenal character breaking down into nonrelational materiality, subverting each other’s connotations, where tarpaulin is just a (polyethylene) surface with no external referents.

Sarah Sayeed

In this issue

Gilsuk Ko Renana Aldor

Miguel Azuaga Richard Zeiss Uriel Ziv Roy Harary Renana Aldor

Gilsuk Ko

Achiel Jones

Israel

Germany

Belgium

As a multidisciplinary artist and animator, I integrate between different mediums with a cinematic approach. I draw my inspiration from the moving image and its history .

During the creative process, I attempt to maintain the initial myths and emotions which are involved with the archetypal cinematic experience. Yet the film will always reveal itself and its inner mechanism to the spectators.

People must live in society, no matter if they want to or not. In this process of making contact with other persons the role and character of the subject changes. The main topic of my work is the relationship between people. Since my childhood I was always afraid of meeting someone new. In Korea when going into a new class at the start of a semester, I was struck with fear of making new friendship. I also felt very chaotic about the different roles of people in society. In some relationships with people I had to become a leader, with other I had to follow and with other it was on par, which left me very confused. Even though I am a human with his own distinctive attributes and character, in order to get along with different people, I had to take different roles and attributes.

While having relationships with other, through other peoples’ character, background and situations etc., my role had to change. If one of these criteria changed, my role also had to change, even though I was with the same people. In my work the role and feeling in these relationship between me and other people is a very personal aspect and also interpretation. But these personal feelings and aspects can also become universal aspects that everyone can identify with.

These personal aspects are metaphorized through symbolic actions, material or people. Those short and simple and daily life actions are repeated in a performance as a communication between people, through which lies a focus on the relationship with the other protagonists in the performance. A climate of restrictiveness is also a method to show my passive role in the relationship and also my fear and restrictiveness. Through materials I can gather in daily life, I can give my personal feelings but it is also still rooted in daily life and therefore it can probably happen. It is a question of relationships in life that continue to happen. Everyone can experience this and reenact this easily.

I’m interested in using video and multimedia (installation, soundscapes) to reveal the deeper resonances of moments.

My work focuses on overlaying video - and/or soundtracks to create visual tapestries exploring the unconscious connections we make during moments in our lives, influencing our present and future.

In my films I create non-narrative stories, half-fictional half-documentary - based on real matriarchal characters.

Specifically, women who are related to me, from my family, or women who are indirectly connected to my origins.

This process begins with a still image of a woman portrait from a different space and time zone. A piece of history, a concrete reality I can rely and hold on to. Simultaneously, I start to develop an imaginary storytelling, attempting to see beyond what is already known. Thereby exploring the feminine presence in front of the camera and behind it.

In my work, it is important for me to maintain a hand gesture and craftsmanship aside from the digital aesthetics. After years of learning and developing drawing skills, today I'm more interested in sculptural aspects of creation, spaces and objects, set making and artificial environments.

This transition from a two-dimensional to a three-dimensional way of thinking is very much involved with my interest in living spaces and tangible memories. The physical space reveals an inner space of unconsciousness and sentiments.

I also focuses on the experience and perception of ordinary moments and their formation as a memory glimpsed in time.

Moments, essential or constituent elements as of a complex idea, so innocent and magical they will leave you wanting more. I tries to capture every moment in my live that seems influential and determined. A never ending research to those constituent elements and hopefully a never ending to capturing moments.

Sarah Sayeed

Jana Charl Achiel Jones

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Special thanks to: Charlotte Seegers, Martin Gantman, Krzysztof Kaczmar, Tracey Snelling, Nicolas Vionnet, Genevieve Favre Petroff, Christopher Marsh, Adam Popli, Marilyn Wylder, Marya Vyrra, Gemma Pepper, Maria Osuna, Hannah Hiaseen and Scarlett Bowman, Yelena York Tonoyan, Edgar Askelovic, Kelsey Sheaffer and Robert Gschwantner.

Lives and works in MĂźnster, Germany

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Gilsuk Ko

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video, 2013

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Gilsuk Ko

but to have a free choice of material to realize ideas, that I was always curious about. While studying painting, I always had a feeling of limitation to keep my topic and idea only on a restricted canvas, thus creating only one point in time and only one singular scene as a still frame. When I get new ideas for works they are always received through an emotional reaction or process, hence one scene and one point in time is not enough to portray my idea just through

Hello and thanks for having me. I indeed started painting as major in Korea but also had a huge interest in free media, in particular to utilize not only painting

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investigate are more personal like with friends or family. Of course being in Germany I started to have relationships with foreigners, a topic like cultural differences and through that communication struggles automatically became part of my works, too.

painting. This is why I early in my career developed an interest in mixed media and video art. The reason to get into performance eventually lies in Germany.

Since I was in Germany I had no place for myself for a longer period of time and had to move rather often so I had a problem to keep lots of material with me for my works. I was skeptical to create something only for a particular time but needed to destroy or throw it away because of moving. I was not able to keep my works with me, so I started to work with highly available material such as my body for art works. Also things from daily life were highly available and due to the fact that my topic is often inspired from my daily life situations, therefore this choice for material seemed rather fitting.

My central idea is the relationship of people in society. Within this topic I would like not to create a specific result but rather emotions and feelings with the spectatorship.

While studying in Korea my topic focused on Myself in a mass of people, therefore in society. Living in Seoul, there are many people in a small area, the population density is enormous.

Because of that you have to be in contact with many people and cannot totally avoid meeting strangers on a daily basis. Despite the many people around I felt quite lonely. Since I came to Germany I was without family or friends. All of a sudden there were not so many people and strangers around me compared to Korea. My topic altered therefore slightly in scope from an outward perspective to an inward, personal perspective, still investigating Myself in society but rather more about my relationship to single people rather than a whole mass of people. Back in Korea relationships with strangers were very impersonal, now the relationships I

Within this process of relationship, in former days I realized my message through the result of the performance and just installed this. For example, I sat on a chair and applied cement on my pair of trousers until it hardened. After hardening I put off the trousers and put the trousers on exhibition, therefore just showing the result. Nowadays I lay my focus much more on the process of creation. This method of showing the creational process through performance and video has nowadays become my style. The audience can more easily relate to my work through this process and have more genuine feelings while watching my work.

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My works’ motifs always come from my experiences and feelings in certain situations. This work’s topic is a lot about the relationship with other people in Germany, more particularly with Germans. I have stayed quite a bit now in Germany and my communication skills got slightly better, I also think, I got more acquainted to German culture, but still I have sometimes problems to fully comprehend German people. I feel that friendships with Germans are different to friendships with Koreans.

This might be due to cultural differences, to a lack of communication skills or my personal shyness, but because of this feeling I always hold back a bit when with German friends or when getting to know someone new.

One time I was on a little trip together with German colleagues, myself being the only foreigner around. For three days we stayed in Poland, so everyone was in a foreign country and there our relationship grew stronger and we got to get to know each other much more intensive because everyone was not in their home country. Back in Germany the feeling of holding back and alienation came back quickly. Through this I got the idea about the motif for my work Comfort Distance, we remained in

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a relationship which is not to close but also not too far away from each other.

Art is not much different to life, it rather derives from it. Artists also live in society like everyone else. In today’s society everyone has his or her own struggle to get by. Through art people can share their feelings, start to find a mutual basis to start communicating and thus start to heal their wounds they get through their daily life. Art is not always high art of fine art but also a contribution to help people getting involved, instead of just standing and watching. Art should not be only for a minority that are able to get to the place of the exhibition like museums or galleries, art should rather be broadcasted widely and help people start communicating and share their feelings, even more so with the available means in this day and age of digital media.

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Gilsuk Ko

When starting to film my works, I just give a description of the situation, material and actions in the scene to the protagonists. I do not give a concrete goal or wanted perception to them. I leave these points open to see the outcome. Before I conduct my works, there is no trying to reach a specific goal. I have it roughly in my mind, though will never give it to my actors so they will not be influenced by the way I think of the scene. Therefore the outcome is very analytical on one side but on the other is still full of emotion and improvisation. Improvisation is an important part of my work, because in order to identify with it, people need their own emotions to be reflected and ultimately start communicating and identifying. This can only happen if the actor in my work is allowed to be fully authentic in his or her emotion.

The situations on display in my works derive all from everyday life. I do not intend to give unnatural scenes to the spectators, in order to make it easier for the spectatorship to interpret their own situation through my works. They should be able to completely rethink their personal situation because they all did what happens on screen themselves

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one time or can at least relate to it.

Everyone tied a button, braided hair or held a pack of spaghetti in his or her hand. With these material, people can more easily think of themselves doing a similar thing. Sure I worked on my personal emotion and situation but yet try to keep it universal and highly relatable to people, because everyone was in a similar situation once. Hence are able to have their own personal feelings relating to my work.

The immersive visual experience is a result of my works, but not a necessity I think of when conceiving an art work. It is more like a consequence from the approach to my works to use daily life situations. When people start recognizing situations they are well acquainted with, then immersion is an effect that easily occurs. People tend to be more open to new ideas when they are based on situations that they are familiar with. Also another important point of my work is repetition. Many viewers do not want to watch a full video in one sitting. Therefore my works repeat the process and action quite a lot within one take in order to quickly establish the idea of my work with the audience. What comes out of this as a

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result is open to the spectatorship, but they do not need to watch my videos in full length. Through the repeated actions, the viewers can speculate and think about the outcome at the end themselves.

Art stems from everyday life, because artist are normal people, too. Everyone has their personal experiences or feelings but there is also a common ground of universal experiences and feelings. All people live in society. The topics of art and society are not to be divided. Through art people share emotions, they share things that became the talking point through art and are finally more considerate about it. Everyone has his personal problems in life. Art should help to socialize this problem and help people get out of isolation with their particular problem.

Personal topics should be brought to a public scale through art and help people rethink their problem.

I do not feature womanhood explicitly in my works. I got asked this questions a few times but I do not try to analyze the role of women in society. That being said, my ideas always come from personal experience and me being a woman, I cannot fully separate this point and it may automatically become a minor part of my work. But foremost I try to realize my ideas about society not with any gender bias. This is quite similar to people living in society, people live as humans but on a subliminal level in certain situations also as man or woman automatically. This also applies for my works. I do not stretch on my role as a female human being, but I cannot

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fully dispatch my womanhood fully from my works, because my works come to existence through my personal experiences, also as a woman.

In my work exist universal metaphors, those are intelligible to most of the spectators instantly. But there are also personal metaphors. These are not intelligible for the spectatorship at first.

As an example, in my work Green Attack I choose an umbrella as material.

Umbrellas are normally used to protect oneself from rain, therefore the metaphor of protection is almost instantly clear. The green pudding on the other side has no connotation to most people. I combine those element in an also metaphoric act and use them as narrative element within my work.

Through the combination of universal and personal metaphor, the emotion in my work becomes obvious to the audience.

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Gilsuk Ko

The basis of my work will also in the future lie in the field of performance art, but its character will differ regarding place of exhibition. Form and method will change according to different locations. Sometimes I will try to do live performances, sometimes video installations, sometimes theater, through different methods of exhibition my topic should evolve naturally. The means of displaying my videos hopefully also evolves to a point where the displayed art work merges with is surrounding and tries to incorporate the spectator even more. The spectator should not only watch but also participate, enjoy, be involved and get a universal feeling.

While creating an art work, I try not to utilize very difficult and complicatd actions, so that the spectators can evolve to a protagonist themselves and try the action out. They can participate, if they want to, but this is also possible not only at the venue of my exhibition but also at home. It can be tried out in various daily life situations. I do not want to limit the audience where to reenact my work, it can be tried everywhere with daily life material.

As human being the topic about differences between my home country and foreign countries I would like to investigate even further.

In my works there is no certain spoken language involved, all my works are nonverbal. My works use the language of emotion and body language which helps to overcome differences and opens my work towards a greater audience.

I will try to continue working in Europe and Korea as well to keep in touch with both sides.

The problems of communication I work on are not due to merely language reasons. This is only superficial. These problems stem from relationships and not from certain language. There are much more things involved in relationships than language. Many different layers.

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Thank you very much for this interesting interview and your interest in my works.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

Lives and works in Jerusalem, Israel

La Femme Qui Cherche

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Lars Vilhelmsen

Hadrian, Bronze casting using the lost wax technique_3

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An interview by and

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Renana Aldor

curator

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Renana Aldor

During my studies in the Screen Based Art Department at the Bezalel Academy, I discovered a new path of creativity, through Film and Animation. I was always fascinated by the moving image, its history and its impression through the reflexive cinematic screen. When I animate I work frame by frame, creating movement by joining one frame to another, 24 frames per second. This process reveals its inner mechanism - the origin of film. In a way, through animation I can explore the deconstruction of movement and furthermore the primal meaning of 'seeing images in movement'.

I came to Bezalel with a solid background in Fine Art studies. My primary school was Waldorf that enables creativity to arise, and in high-school I majored in Fine Art in a unique program for high-school students at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. My final project was an installation which included sculpture, drawings and video projection. Today my creative process draws from both fields - Fine Arts and Film.

In my work, I'm confronting the 'aesthetic problem' or the 'aesthetic matter' when referring to my origins and biography. My parents were raised in Israel, yet, my grandparents and most of their generation were born and raised in different countries and continents across the sea. My grandparents came from - Argentina (and prior to that from Poland and Slovakia), Algeria and Morocco. Faraway places, a distant past of my family which I thought I'd never be able to visit or understand. A narrative that appears as a 'blind spot' in my field of vision. Their memories hold within themselves essential aesthetic values, specific sounds, smells, colors and textures. Lives and stories I could only imagine and still feel nostalgic about.

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La Femme Qui Cherche

In a paradoxical way, their memories and cultural backgrounds is functioning as my aesthetic foundation. I feel very much Israeli in the sense of its hybrid essence. A cultural substratum which is driven from its mixture aesthetics of East and West, the historic and current and new.

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Renana Aldor

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Renana Aldor

La Femme Qui Cherche

Installation, Set Design, Performance and more. I process this constellation every time with the same cinematic approach.

In my work I'm interest in combinations of different mediums. I see the leaking / connecting areas, where two mediums or more blend together, as an option for expanding and reformulating the Medium itself. I wonder between Animation, Video,

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In my work, quite often, I attempt to express the 'impossible', for instance: to see my grandmother's memories or to show the daily routine of a rational monkey held in captivity. Those 'impossible' narratives can

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vision I wish to express. Another important element I consider when creating, is the reflexive impression of the medium. I'm intrigued and fascinated when art is reflexive to itself, a film about film, mediums that stretch their own boundaries.

The genesis of my film 'La femme qui cherche' - the searching woman, is rooted in my inability to see my grandmother's past.

The film evolves as a journey in search of a hidden matriarchal figure, inspired by my late grandmother Esther and her memories of Oran - her hometown in Algeria. The viewer experiences the journey by passing along four miniature domestic spaces: the office, the bathroom, the kitchen and the living room.

My grandmother used to tell me many stories about her childhood in Oran. Small heroic stories in a tough survival reality - how she used to work every day in her father's shop and take care of her younger sister and brother after her mother passed away. She also told me about the movies she loved to watch in the cinema, and how beautiful the French women were dressed. Such images and stories became engraved in my imagination.

be expressed due to the unconventional medium combinations. This unique quality also exists in animation by itself.

Building the miniature models of the furniture and objects of my grandmother's home was an exercise in sensual memory - the memories became tangible to me. Some of the furniture I actually remembered some resembled my own, and some were a figment

My transition between mediums also depends on my thematic ideas. In each creative process, I think what medium will suit the most for the concept, and sometimes it is a matter of a strong visual

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of my imagination. It was important for me to create a three-dimensional sculptural space - a structural system with depth and hidden areas. The spaces has shaded uncanny corners that can function also as the locus of the unconscious.

In my film the real and the imagined are dependent on each other. One of the key elements for my film, is the sense of sight or the lack of sight. After my grandfather passed away my grandmother started to gradually lose her sight. Until finally, she saw only shadows and light fragments. Her physical blindness is symbolic to my own metaphorical blindness when referring to her past. In that sense, the film embodies my possibility to see through her eyes and as if to bring back her eyesight. At the end of my film we are in my grandmother's living room, where the revelation emerges.

The hidden woman glimpses through the shadows, her eyes wander on the wall, finally, looking directly to the spectators.

Therefore, the imagined contains the most substantial solution for the elusiveness of the real. As if the imagined and the real have switched their roles.

La Femme Qui Cherche

a vital creative force. She is a guiding light, a voice, in life and in my creative process.

This abstract journey is driven by a feminine search. A genealogy search of a matriarchal identity chain. A search of the 'ancient mother' - inspired by my grandmother, a survival matriarchal figure which constitutes

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Renana Aldor

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In my Video work - Sliczna Sylvie - I'm tracing small domestic actions of a close family friend, a photographer, in her apartment and studio. Sylvie's hands are dominant in the 50mm lens frame, busy

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Renana Aldor

Śliczna Sylvie

with the everyday tasks or performing artistic gestures, while I'm documenting her.

A poetical and intimate research, of the smallest material details through a magnifying glass. My creative process is always influenced by my personal experience, directly or indirectly. In my work

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I'm searching for a corporeal representation of the memory. Objects, furniture, shapes and the gap in between them - the negative space, where the sentiments and the longing are. Behind the camera, I have the freedom and the responsibility to decide

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Renana Aldor

ART Habens

I think art should always react to the evolving technology - contradict it while adopting it. In that sense, in 'La femme qui cherche', my choice to build the miniature sets by hand and to animate by stop-motion technique, is an antithesis to the existing technology. In other words, I could have used 3D printing technology for building the miniature sets and props, but then of course, the film would have told a completely different story.

One of the enormous effects of technology is the acceleration of the everyday life.

However, Art has it's own rhythm and time.

When art aspire to reveal the unconscious, time is a crucial and a significancent matter to this process. In my films time is an important component. Actually, there are two timelines that I consider while creating; one is the film’s timeline and the other is the timeline of actual reality. While observing my films, I want my spectators to be aware of both timelines, meaning – that the timeline of the film is a part of the actual life.

what will be in my frame and what story I want to tell.

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Renana Aldor

The work 'Monkey and a Cage' I created with the collaboration of the industrial designer and performer Dan Hochberg. It is an Installation and Performance about a daily routine of a monkey in his cage: he is listening to the radio, playing Chess with the zoo keeper, drawing portraits of the zoo visitors, taking care of his pet, playing the cymbals and celebrating his daily birthday in captivity. The work was displayed at the 25th International Festival of Puppet Theater in Jerusalem.

Although the performance was intended for both children and adults, it contained a subversive subtext. For example, the cage we built for the monkey - who performed by Dan, was airy and without bars. Seemingly, the monkey could run away at any moment, and yet it didn't happen.

We wanted to create a situation that deals with imprisonment as an existential feeling. This situation also emphasize the complex relationship between the prisoner and its captivator. I think that one of the artist roles is to provoke and stimulate the observer's thinking. To confront the viewers with questions and complex emotional situations from current and social issues.

My art is very much influenced by me being a woman, something that I see as my strength. I think that the meaning of being a creative woman is an important contrast to the political moves which are masculine by its character. Naturally, in my work I express openly an emotional and contemplative atmosphere, which is very intuitive to me. This atmosphere is also a contrast to masculine boundaries that still exist today.

This is very true, I'm intrigued and driven by associative thinking, multilayered storytelling, symbolism, and mystery. As I don't see reality as

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Śliczna Sylvie

a dichotomous system of black and white, I attempt to maintain in my work multiple options of interpretation. In addition, my works deal with emotions, which are abstract in their essence, what requires this openness to occur. In my perception, what

Renana Aldor

ART Habens

makes art interesting, is a multilayered structure - conceptually and visually. I think that this openness approach enables me to grow side by side with my art.

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Renana Aldor

Śliczna Sylvie

It is very important for me to comunicate with my audience, and It is also importent for me to stay true to myself and my ideas. The creative process is very intimate and personal to me. When i'm creating, in a way,

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Renana Aldor

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themselves qustions: what is it that I see in the composition and what is missing? What action lead to another action? And what is the meaning of different moves? By planting clues in my work, I accompany my viewers and lead them to understanding or closure.

The short animation 'Hadrian, Bronze Casting Using The "Lost Wax" Technique' made with the collaboration of Kobi Vogman, for the "Hadrian, An Emperor Cast In Bronze" exhibition, held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, 2015. While making this film, we had a great challenge to communicate with our audience. We needed to figure out how to explain through film the bronze casting process in a simple method. Simultaneously, it was important for us to solve how we can experiment and challenge our visual language. The outcome was a mixture of both comprehensions.

I continue to create from a multidisciplinary perspective. I have a new Studio in Jerusalem and currently I'm working on some new projects. I'm also a part of the artist residency program - 'The Underground Academy' at the 'Mamuta Art and Media Center' at the Hansen House in Jerusalem. I see my work evolving from film to structural and sculptural space and back to film and animation. I'm excited about what is yet to come!

Thank you Art Habens, for the lovely interview!

I'm revealing a part of myself to the outside, and therefore I want to preserve an element of a mystery in my work.

I want my viewers to be active while watching / observing my films and other works. I want them to think and to ask

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Miguel Azuaga (Born 1988, Málaga, Spain) currently lives in Berlin. His recent work explores the constant construction of identity through biographical research and the impact of migration flows, positing a discourse in which aesthetics is inextricably linked to a sociopolitical context. Installation, video and photography are the media he uses to develop his artistic production.

Azuaga earned a BFA from the University of Málaga in 2011 and rounded out his education with courses at the University of the Arts London (UAL). He has participated in solo and group shows in Spain, England and Germany.

He recently participated in several different workshops, including "Der Prolog" with fellow artist Ursula Biemann.

Since 2015 he is enrolled in the "Art in Context" MA programme at the Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin) –focused on artistic production and curating– where he also works as web content editor.

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video, 2013

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An interview by and

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curator , curator

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Miguel Azuaga

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Thank you for inviting me to take part in this new edition. I remember the period before moving abroad to be my very first years of artistic production. At the age of 19 I did a few art projects while studying my BFA and I participated in group exhibitions in Målaga, Bilbao and Barcelona among other cities. Back in that time, what interested me the most was experimenting with new media. I had the chance to study my BFA in a new university that was not yet very structured, which gave me the possibility to work with video, installation and anything related to electronic art from an early age. After finishing my BFA at the age of 22, I wasn’t sure what to do next. I think nobody at that age does.

We experience times in which old social and family conventions have undergone an extreme transformation. I started to feel terrified about the idea of not being fully independent from my family. On the other side, I was afraid of living permanently in my home town. I come from a country tends to be strongly rooted. I am not sure if this is actually a cultural issue, but those thoughts inevitably led me to decide to live for some time abroad. I left Spain a few days after I presented my BFA final work.

The first year abroad was quite tough. To describe my training as solid and formal,

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might make an audience think that I’ve been studying continuously for the past years or that it’s all been about being fully dedicated to my artistic production and my studies. In fact, a few years passed in between each of my studies.

Like most of the people who moved to other countries without financial support, I had to work a lot until I could afford to study again. By the second year in London, I decided to enroll in few courses at the UAL for a more technical training. A few months after, I moved to Berlin, as I was offered a new job there.

It’s here in Berlin where I started to produce again. I have combined different part time jobs with freelancing for the last 5 years, although in Berlin I gained more time to produce, as living here is more calm and affordable than in London. Being enrolled at the Berlin University of Arts since 2015, has been undoubtedly the most challenging experience, although I don’t consider my evolution as an artist in the last years to be defined by my studies or my artist production as much as it has been by my personal experiences.

When it comes to getting your audience to engage with the work, yes. I think being multidisciplinary brings you the opportunity to think about a subject through reaching different levels of understanding. I really sought public

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interaction in some of the works.

Therefore, the reason to be multidisciplinary in this project is quite obvious to me. Take for instance the work “Revisados”, that seems to distance itself from the rest of the others. The monotonous sounds of a PA system and the installation-like format of the piece, with a surveillance camera and queue barriers directly takes you to an airport, a transit area, a non- place.

This installation needs the audience’s interaction to gain autonomy and to be understood. Using photography or only video is not as playful for the audience as it is creating an specific atmosphere with different elements in which both, space and the audience are strongly connected to the work. When you work on a subject using different formats, the initial idea can be transformed in a wide variety of meanings, your work becomes multi- dimensional and delivers the audience deeper within it. The way the public conceives and believe in your ideas obviously depends on how you expose those ideas to them. I couldn’t have developed this project without working with different visual sources because it wouldn’t have had the same impact.

The old photos of my grandfather were the main souce of inspiration. I’ve always been impressed by analogue photos of my family. And those in particular I found extremely interesting because there is a content to them, a story behind that I did not yet know

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about. I was back home for a few days when I saw those photos. He had lived abroad for more than 10 years. I realised that I too had already lived for almost 5 years abroad. He was just one, like me, among many. It was very emotional to be there looking at these images. I wondered if he moved for the same reasons as me, if he also had the same doubts. That’s how the project started. It was clear after seeing the photos that I wanted to do something with it.

The trip wasn’t planned at all, it came after. At the beginning all I thought was to bring different times together.

Becoming metaphors for the act of migration. I wanted to do a trip to the past by collecting memories of him.

What I didn’t think of, was to do a real trip in the sense of packing my stuff and travelling there. After finding the photos I started to collect more information about my grandfather. I visited my grandmother and asked her several times but she could hardly remember his living abroad. My mother and uncles told me about some cousins who could tell me more about him. So I drove to other cities and visit family of my grandfather that I never met before. Fortunately, they had more photos of him, letters and even some personal objects. They knew where he lived and worked during those 10 years. I wasn’t yet thinking about doing a trip. I was just thinking of

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collecting information about him that could be interesting to add to the project.

I searched those places through google maps and all of the sudden I realised I started to become more obsessive about „that person,“ although I had never met him. I though that, if I visited places he worked, houses he lived, areas he often visited, I would enter a very experimental process that would definitely drive the project in a completely unexpected and exciting new direction. And so I did. I packed all these documents and photos, and moved to Olten, Daniken, Dulliken, and the districts he had spent all those years.

“All of us harbour in ourselves hidden gardens and plantations,” Nietzsche wrote in “The Gay Science,” apropos of certain human aptitudes—eruptions—that only become apparent after years and generations have passed; the children and grandchildren “bring to light the inner qualities of their grandfathers, the qualities that their grandfathers themselves did not know about.”

I have compare myself to other person through his memories. I believe drawing comparisons is something we tend to do when we feel unstable, without structure.

This can be caused by insecurity and disorientation. Memory has been the way through which I have approached that reference. I use memory to draw an objective point of reference, a standard,

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something fixed to determine if we are headed in the right direction. This is key.

This video was the only work of the project that I had planned previously, so I decided to make it during the first day of the trip. The climb up the mountain was long, particularly given the uncertainty of the climate, and of whether the location would even work.

The whole situation was breathtaking.

The feeling I had once the filming was completed is indescribable. It was just the first day of the trip, but it felt like the most difficult part of the project was already done. My grandfather used to visit this area during his years in Switzerland. The location of the video belongs to a local ski resort, in a remote mountain of the Swiss Alps. Just wait is within the project my most versatile, with the widest variety of meaning. In the video, the reference is obvious, although I am more focused on the message rather than on the image itself or the reference to time. It is a reinterpretation of Caspar David Friedrich “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” of 1818. There have been many analyses regarding the original painting, but one of the few that caught my attention described the piece as “a metaphore for the unknown future.” I found it extremely similar to the groundwork of my project. Some of the audience described the video as a postcolonial critique. This really caught my attention,

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as I had not myself approached the video that way.

I created a fictional time out of two realities. The audience no longer knows what is real and what is not. I have crossed the boundaries between the original (or archival) image and the manipulated one. The theory of photography has experienced radical transformations with the advent of digital images. With the digital, reality is constantly questioned nowadays. That is what I wanted to talk about in some of the works too. About the power of digitalisation in the way we perceive reality and its ability of generating fictional realities. We are no longer accept as “real” the existence of the reproduced object. Fiction play a very important role in this project, specially in works like “As if I was ‘there’”. I have recently heard that if we don't deploy fiction, then probably we are not truthful enough. I identified with it.

I really sought public interaction in some of the works. What happened to me could have also happened to somebody else. Could be a reflection of others. It is

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a constant challenge, as I think it is also for other artists, to make something involving the public in the best possible way. I like my works to be approached differently depending on the space where is shown, and the way I realize it is mostly through installation. This is one of the things I love about installation. One conceives it always as a format that is intrinsically connected to the space. It is just very playful.

The aesthetics of Towards the “other� is perceived as a consequence of sociopolitical conditions. But its narrative is far from being only critical in that sense. It also speaks to us of loneliness and the feeling of being uprooted, of a quest to fill a void. More than hinting the direction, I have opted to offer different directions, to not categorise this work as only social, only intimate, or only political. The title of the project has in fact double meaning for

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that reason. The „other“ is, one side, referring to someone else that is obviously not me, someone that might have had a similar experience to mine, someone I am trying to be like, to act like. In this sense, the search for a reference is clear: the search for a figure; for an identity in another person.

And on the other side, the „other“ seen as the person that ones become as consequence of being abroad. In both cases, political and social issues are at stake. But the level of significance differs depending on how we understand the „other“. In any case, I think the political critique in some of the works are more of national character, for instance using the Francoist Flag, covered in passport stamps. I consider any social experience to be a consequence of politics and, although it is not my only focus, I try to reflect that in the work. There is a need for the audience to be well informed about what’s going on nowadays, especially living in these times of mass information. That much is clear. For that reason I think artists with obvious social and political elements are more valued in present times. But art is so deeply imaginative and full of possibilities, that it shouldn’t be determined only by its socio-political context. I definitely think every artist should be free to talk to the audience about their own realities. That is for me the role they should play in society today. Which is always quite exciting, as we all don’t live the same realities.

An interview by and

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curator , curator

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Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

No.72 , 2017 Egg tempera and yacht varnish on polyethylene; brass

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Richard Zeiss

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grommets, steel rods, perspex cube100 x 60 x 60 cm 423 7

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Lars Vilhelmsen

No.65 , 2016 Egg tempera paper on canvas, 90 x 90, 50 x 50 x 75 cm 4 03 Special Issueon tarpaulin and partially developed photographic

An interview by and

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Richard Zeiss

Sometimes more on the conceptual side, and sometimes right there in the studio as things are happening. For example, egg tempera is one of my favourite materials, and I use it all the time. And I learnt how to make that medium from scratch in my very first BA class in Germany. I suppose you could say the “higher� the degree, the more it informs my practice on a conceptual level. The MPhil in particular was something I did

Hello, thanks for having me! With regard to your question, I suppose each of the degrees you mentioned informs my practice in a more or less direct way.

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because at the time I felt I needed to engage with academic input again by exposing my work to my peers in a research context. You contextualise your practice in terms of thinkers in different fields like philosophy, psychology, linguistics and whatever else. This has helped me a lot in my ability to use my work as metaphors or analogies for the way knowledge and meaning is produced. But at the same time, like Elizabeth Price said in one of her talks at the RCA – I read philosophy, but I’d advise you to leave it outside the studio door. And it’s true: while I conceptualise my work within certain areas of thought, what happens as I am physically creating a piece is still very visceral.

Ok, let me see if I can unpack this question. I suppose in the first part you are heading towards the issue of medium specificity here. Ultimately, I still see myself as a painter, but one of my interests is definitely the expansion

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No.72 , detail 21 4 77

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No.72 , detail Special Issue

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of the boundaries of this medium to include immaterial manifestation as well as 3D work. To me, medium specificity remains important. Many art schools have abolished the notion of mediumspecific courses. The RCA has been late to this party – one that I personally believe the school might have wanted to skip altogether. Being the last school to offer medium-specific degrees also makes you the first school to offer such courses. You could say you’re far ahead of the curve. In my experience, no student would ever refrain from seeking help and input from other departments.

Just because you are in Painting (i.e. the course) does not mean you will not gladly cross the street and talk to your peers in Sculpture. But I digress. I have always felt that in order to contextualise your work within the arts, it is important to be aware of the medium/media one navigates, and to this end it helps to have a beacon in one medium or the other so to speak. This is your point of reference from which you work outwards. “If you know your history, then you (would) know where you’re coming from”, as a great Jamaican philosopher once said. And it is only with this in mind that I feel comfortable venturing into new territory, thinking about how it might or might not relate to my home turf. So, while you can rightly call my approach multidisciplinary, it still tends to fold back on questions of painting somehow.

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painting. It always seems like a catch 22.

The way I have approached this is by using materials such as tarpaulin or egg tempera: they come with strong external references, which, I suggest, may ultimately cancel each other out like vectors pulling in opposite directions, with their individual phenomenal character dismembered into pure, radical materiality, subverting each other’s connotations.

Picking up from the end of your question, I would say there is a central underlying theme within which I negotiate my art practice. Or probably more than one, depending on how far back you want to step and look at it. Two of my main interests are materiality and the question of how and whether literature translates into visual art. These come up in various ways: isolated or together, sometimes more explicitly, and sometimes less so. One of the pivotal moments in my research in the past years was when I came across Paul de Man, a Belgian linguist. He re-reads Kant in a non-aesthetic way and develops the concept of “radical materiality” from Kant’s sublime. This is a kind of materiality that exists before phenomenalisation takes hold – or more paradoxically, a form of “seeing before seeing”. A materiality that comes without any references and that de Man also refers to as “pure materiality”. As a linguist, de Man locates this form of materiality in text, where the individual letters that hold no meaning would assume this role. Only once you put them together – i.e. read them – meaning emerges. My interest has been whether and how this idea could translate into visual arts, especially

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So this would be the material angle, although as you can see, already very much based on writing, on the text. The other pillar in my practice has been the analogy of literature per se, and how, as far as the production and conveyance of meaning is concerned, it is similar to visual arts. I have been quite fascinated

by Blanchot’s writing and what his texts do to the reader. It almost becomes a living thing of its own and is very resistant to any interpretation due to the infinite displacement of meaning. This is a form of autonomy of the artwork that I quite admire. This form of autonomy hinges on the work’s “foreverbecoming”, while no stable meaning is being created.

This finally takes me to the work you have mentioned, i.e. No.72. I usually refer to it as “The Membrane Machine”.

The creation of meaning in Blanchot and, on a more basic level, de Man, results from difference. Meaning is created by all the meanings that can NOT be attached, in a form of negative production of meaning, which goes back to structuralist ideas. Something is something because it is not any one of all the other things. A threshold of

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No.72 , detail

No.67 , 2016 Egg tempera and yacht varnish on canvas; wood, LED lighting., 68 x 68 x 149 cm

Richard Zeiss

meaning creation forms along a membrane between meaning and notmeaning, where one pushes against the other. The Membrane Machine is meant as a visualisation of this process.

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My use of the materials that you mention in particular, i.e. egg tempera and tarpaulin, hinges on my efforts to translate a linguistic concept into visual arts – as you rightly say, one carries the reference of industrial use, the other one harks back to medieval religious painting. The combination of those two results more from the goals of my practice than a pitting of tradition vs. the contemporary condition per se. What I use is the connotation of the specific material. Artists whom I have great interest in tend to put strong emphasis on material as well. If I were to choose from the “canon”, I’d definitely be looking at the Russian Avant-garde. As far as contemporary artists are concerned, Markus Amm is one of my favourites.

I tend to look at the way material is semantically charged. As I said earlier, the idea of pure, non-phenomenological materiality is something that has fascinated me, because of the impossibility this concept creates in the visual field. Defying this impossibility in an area that hinges on this exact parameter (i.e. seeing and comprehending) is an interesting challenge. I almost feel like an alchemist when I search out certain materials whose external references are potentially different enough as to erode each other.

I find work that requires the viewer to “perform” very interesting – it sometimes comes from the most

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Egg tempera and varnish on polyethylene; brass grommets. 140 x 110 cm

ART Habens

Richard Zeiss

XXXIX, 2015 Egg tempera and yacht varnish on tarpaulin, 150 x 120 cm

unexpected of artists like Agnes Martin, whose work urges the viewer to move back and forth constantly. On the other hand, I am not overly impressed with

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extremely literal work that forces the viewer to remain within a given perimeter of interpretation. As for my own work‌ well, given my interest in

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Richard Zeiss

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XXXV, 2015 Egg tempera and yacht varnish on tarpaulin, 155 x 155 cm

writing, particularly in texts that are selfcontained and defy interpretation by becoming alive and unstable on the basis of an infinity loop of fractal

narratives and displaced meaning, I cannot see why I would want to “prescribe� a specific way of reading my work.

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No.64 , 2016 Partially developed photographic paper on board, 30 x 198 cm

Richard Zeiss

ART Habens

laws also work under “normal” conditions on Earth, but as soon as you change the context, they break down.

Just look at paintings of maps, or imagine micro-structures blown up by an extreme factor. You could argue that many abstract works are only considered abstract because we do not know their real-world counterpart. Myself, I sometimes make still lifes, and while I am aware of their representational nature, to me they are a way of calibrating my material with something I know very well – almost like letters in, again, a text.

I suppose I can refer back to the earlier question just now – nowadays I prefer not to be prescriptive about titles. I do sometimes add a subtitle in parentheses though if I feel the viewer needs a certain entry point into the loop.

I am not entirely sure what you mean by non-sharpness in this context, but I have just pointed out my own vagueness when it comes to the prescriptive nature of the titles of my work, so I suppose you should have the same right. Let me start by addressing the issue of abstraction and representation. A lot has been said about this issue by more well-read people than me, so I will put the disclaimer here that this is merely my opinion. I think that the question of abstract vs. representational largely applies for reasons of classification. It is a reference system that gets extremely blurred at the borders. The way Newton

I did not know this particular quote from Angela Bulloch, but the quote itself and what you are saying about recontextualisation would appear to be quite in tune with some of David Joselit’s essays, for example “Painting Beside Itself” and the show he curated at Museum Brandhorst in Munich, “Painting 2.0: Expression in the Information Age”.

Artists have increasingly become aware of their networked situation, and this

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No.51 , 2016 Egg tempera, mica pigment and yacht varnish on tarpaulin. Brass grommets, tension wires. Backlit 163 x 106 cm (net)

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then reflects not the least on the downstream areas of their practice, i.e. logistics and display, even within individual shows.

But the situation you describe also creates a sense of constant access and exposure as also described by Paul Virilio. And if you have read Paul Virilio, you know that not everything is great once this particular thinker comes to mind, to put it in very simple terms.

compelling. To me, the work of art, through its permutations of meaning, sometimes goes beyond that which can be said, it goes beyond the barrier of language. I am not talking about “you have to feel it” either. Art produces knowledge and meaning that sometimes exceeds the realms of language.

It’s been my pleasure. I am currently working on a collaborative project in South Africa with a UK-Kenyan artist, Arlene Wandera, who also represents Kenya at this year’s Venice Biennale. We are calling it Duck & Rabbit Projects (www.duckandrabbitprojects.com) in reference to Wittgenstein’s famous duckrabbit creature, where you never know which of the two you are looking at.

Basically, the project hinges on the difference of our artistic practice as well as on differences in cultural background, and on how these differences play out in a show of our work. In other words, whose work would set the tone as it were, and whose work would be integrated into the theme set by the dominant work. We are proud and thankful that Arts Council England funded this project.

We’ll have a show in Johannesburg at the end of May and will then come back for follow-up shows in September.

The fractal narratives and displaced meaning in a piece of art is something I a fascinated by – the creation of an autonomous piece that ultimately stands on its own. I am not trying to die the infamous “death of the author” as suggested by Barthes, but there is something to be said about work that remains semi-impermeable to the conscious grasp of the viewer, and ultimately even the author or creator.

It’s the detection of different entry points by the audience that I find particularly

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An interview by and

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, curator curator

No.58 , 2016 Egg tempera and yacht varnish on galvanised steel mesh; brass hooks. 60 x 100 cm

Lives and works in Israel

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Uriel Ziv

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video, 2013

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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Photos by

Uriel Ziv

Hello ART HABENS and readers. In order to create a slightly more comprehensive picture I will look back into my biography. I grew up in the conservative ultra-Orthodox society, the eldest of seven children, and my father a wellknown rabbi. In my home there were no Western cultural symbols like a computer TV, etc.

Furthermore my education was ultra-Orthodox, rigid and violent. At a very young age I realized that this was not the way of life I aspired to, and after long, complex and painful struggles, and when I was permitted to, I went out into the world and started life literally from scratch. In Haredi schools (so-called "Haider") one cannot study basic subjects such as mathematics,

chemistry, art, etc. The only studies permitted are holy studies like Gmara (Talmud) and Bible study. After completing the basic studies I had missed, and due to my great love of cinema, I spent several months studying cinema at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. During this time I realized I want to study art and so moved to New Media studies at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design in Jerusalem. I currently live and work in Israel.

Being an artist / creator in Israel is almost

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impossible. It is a daily struggle, since support for art and artists are almost non-existent. In addition, we have been 'blessed' with a racist and ignorant cultural minister (Miri Regev) whose entire essence in life is to fight against the freedom of expression of artists and creators. When I am in the creative process I try

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to examine things from a universal point of view.

I occasionally create work that is a direct response to a situation, such as in Follow The Leader, 2016, which was created as a direct response to the masses following fascist like leaders such as US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Uriel Ziv

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As you mentioned, I am in a perpetual state of searching. When I find a stub of an idea, I add it

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to the database of ideas that I have in my cell phone, computer and in the sketchbook. As far as I'm concerned, everything around me, physically and ideologically, is potential creative material. We live in an age of material overwhelm, wherever we look there is material waiting to receive its new artistic form. When I start working on a new object \ project I accumulate materials such as YouTube footage, film footage, images, texts, and so on. At the same time, I manually and later on computer, sketch different versions of the idea / space / object. When the idea is at its infancy there is the initial "obsessive" enthusiasm where I think I have found what is worthy of the object and later comes the filtering and cleaning stage until the most appropriate form and idea is achieved.

I cannot say with certainty that I work instinctively, but I combine instincts and building and consolidation processes. The conceptual formative essence of the object is what leads me. Each object requires the right materials and methods for it: there are objects that are born and shaped out of the physical matter, where the idea comes later, and there are objects that are born and built out of an idea.

With regards to the work process, when I combine video into a physical object, I split the work into two: in the studio which is outside the house (ironically but in line with the spirit of the place, my studio is in a bomb shelter that is used during wartime‌) I work on the physical materials, and at home I work on the video editing. The work in the studio is physical, so I try to do it during the day when my body is alert, while the digital work is left to the night time, because there is something in the silence and darkness that suits my mental state.

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Besides the game of words Scream-Screen I was very fascinated by the alien shape of the head in Munch's famous painting ‘The Scream’ 1893.

The painting and the subsequent versions created have indeed become worn out and cliché, but the main theme remains relevant, the scream is the existential cry of contemporary man. In addition, Luis Buñuel's films influenced me a lot, especially the 1929 film Un Chien Andalou and the unforgettable scene of the eye cutting by a razor blade. The essence of eye cutting is more relevant than ever, especially in an age where we are surrounded by screens and flooded with visual information, some of which is difficult to digest. This visual surplus causes a decrease in sensitivity, think of famous and strong images like the Syrian baby being washed ashore or the stunned child in the backseat of the bus and in contrast the video of the ISIS head decapitation. I wanted to create an object that expresses this numbness without emotionally burdening the viewer with known and accessible information, I wanted to create an object that unites with the viewer and unites with the space. Eye-cutting in the surrealist sense is the possibility of seeing beyond the real world, a vision that is more transcendental in nature, and since the idea behind the object is actually blindness, I decided to double the eye cutting so that both eyes are cut, the connection between the two eyes created the initial structure of the face. To the cut eyes I added screaming mouths taken from YouTube. I put these eyes and mouths into Munch's alien skull so that I actually created a new, contemporary face. Another conceptual reversal was turning the video into a negative so that the material coming out of the eyes would glow a bit, and in addition I multiplied the screaming faces like in Andy Warhol's Eight Elvises.

In addition, when the viewer stands in front of the work, his face is reflected on the glass surface, creating a merging between the viewer’s face and the work and between the viewer and the space reflected on the work.

Conceptually, the decision is in the hands of the viewer. It is he who decides whether he wants to

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Uriel Ziv

see beyond what is routine known and acceptable or whether he is comfortable remaining with eyes that may be open but are lacking in diagnostic depth.

I completely agree that in the near future art and technology will assimilate into one another. At the moment we are at the beginning of the revolution and as with all technological revolutions the changes are rapid. It will be easier for artists to explore technology once the materials are cheaper and accessible. In my opinion, contemporary and future art will revolve around the essence of movement, physical movement within an object or movement in space. You can already see more and more art spaces featuring VR, spaces that display works based on motion and sound sensors, 3D printers, robots, etc. In addition, I believe that in the very near future it will be possible to experience exhibitions and installations in one’s living room. This will be made possible by wearing eyewear such as helmet glasses and eventually digital contact lenses. In addition, more and more exhibition spaces will combine physical objects in space with digital objects, creating a connection between the real world and the digital world, similar to the Pokemon GO video game. As an artist I am fascinated by the combination between material that can be sensed and digital material. I think this is an intriguing and challenging period of technological revolutions. In

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Uriel Ziv

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my opinion, as artists, it is our responsibility to take this abundance and turn it into good art, art that can affect change in our immediate environment and perhaps even in the world. I totally think that the Simulacra era is already here.

I think that today’s artist has more possibilities to affect social changes. These possibilities are a direct result of technology being accessible. An intriguing work from one end of the world can create a change at the other end.

I think that artists today are very aware of this and there are international collaborations. It's amazing in my eyes! The endless possibilities for intercultural cooperation, which would not have occurred without technological accessibility.

Collaborations are happening between artists and artists, artists and scientists, between artists and makers, etc. Artists have the necessary sensors to identify the future, and I would dare say that artists are a kind of prophet and their role is to create new languages that will give perspectives not seen earlier. The minute there is a range of languages, global interpersonal communication will develop and as a result problems that were previously insolvable will be solved. Our power as a group that thinks together, what Aristotle called "Wisdom of the Crowd" is enormous. Instead of viewing a problem from a single point of view, one can look at it from a number of angles, which will lead to a faster solution. Today’s artists use technology to affect changes, Olafur Eliasson and his lighting project is a good example.

It would sound naive but I think the role of the artist in the present era is to mainly look beyond

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Uriel Ziv

the familiar beyond what he has been taught, he must enter into the microcosm of things, analyze them, present them and talk about them. An artist is a sensor that listens to the pulse of the world and responds to it.

In my opinion the term "reality" has lost its meaning today, since there is no one version of reality and there are many different realities. It all depends on the observer's point of view. When I create a new work of art I aspire to "cast doubt" in the eye of the beholder, a doubt about what he is seeing and what he understands. For me, as soon as the doubt exists in the viewer, uncertainty is created. This uncertainty is a representation of the current reality: we live in an era of “Fake News�, where truth and lies are so intimately intertwined that it is very difficult to extract the longed-for-truth from them. From the visual-textual chaos coupled with our intellectual-emotional baggage, life experience, dreams, and anxieties we carry with us, we must choose our reality. And therefore reality is different and varies from person to person.

In addition, when I create a new object, I try to avoid restrictive definitions and focus on the dialogue - or at best the struggle between the idea and the material. At one end is the abstract conceptual material that runs around giving no rest, and at the other is the real-physical material, which also seeks the right form for itself. As an artist I have to connect them in the most organic way so that something new is born that was not created before in the world. should contain several layers of communication in order to be suitable for a broad range of people. It is desirable that a work of art in the public sphere reflect and "speak" its surroundings. If the work is alienated from its surroundings, it will lose its essence as a work of art in the public sphere. As for my work, the viewer's experience is important to me, but not to the point of trying to please the viewer, that is absolutely out of the question! Since some of my work deals with the essence of visual processes, I aspire that the viewer be part of the

I think that a work of art in the public sphere must first communicate with the viewer by making him think, be amazed, frightened, humored, etc. In addition a work of art in the public sphere should be a bit more than the whim of an artist, it should generate interaction and discourse around and

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Uriel Ziv

ART Habens

want the viewer to lose himself in the work, I want him to have enough space to examine things outside of the creator's point of view. I want the viewer to ask himself questions and look beyond the retina into the "channels and pipes", and there on the roadside the intriguing things happen.

work, whilst leaving the latter with the decision whether to be an active part or not. In some of my works I plant seductive and inviting elements, such as the artificial fur in Vesicle, 2013, which invites the viewer to stroke the work, and as soon as he approaches and touches it or is reflected in it, he becomes part of the work.

I do not want a total absolute experience in which the spectator is captivated in the work of art, like in cinema and VR, even though there is something easy and tempting in that. I don’t

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Uriel Ziv

it was lost and will never be found. A good work of art should be slightly flawed and asymmetrical, both conceptually and in its form.

It should be seductive or both. It should defy and upset and certainly not provide answers or bring satisfaction. At the same time it must contain mysterious transcendental elements mixed in with material worldliness. A work of art cannot rely only on immediate symbolic interpretation.

When I think/am impregnated by a new work of art, I do not really think about a narrative, in fact I never think of a narrative, a narrative has no

I tend to agree with this statement, in my eyes a good work of art is like a puzzle in which part of

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Uriel Ziv

ART Habens

of what the artist wants and the latter must learn to compromise, because ultimately the will of the object / work is the one that matters and it is what gives it its final form.

The rhythm inside my work is one of my most important things, I usually tend towards a repetitive slower pace, and when editing videos whose ultimate purpose is to be part of an object, I strive to create a short clip lacking in narrative, one that evokes an alertness; there is importance in the slower pace – which is circular as well, a waiting for something to happen but without a final dramatic purpose. Nothing happens and what remains is only the expectation of what may occur. In Goodbad, the suspension element is very important, since the work is relies on the fact that the famous heroes do not get to draw their weapons, and by doing this I in effect "castrate" them of the macho essence expected of them.

The same applies to the sound of the work (sound created specifically by the creator Eilon Levy), a sound that despite being familiar, is not pleasing to the viewers ears, it is stuck in a loop and something about it is a bit metallic and disturbing. This "harassment" from within a familiar sound creates the feeling that Freud called 'Das Unheimliche' (The Uncanny).

meaning to me. Moreover, I am at war against the narrative, I want to dissolve it or at least run away from it. In terms of 'visual unity', when I think for example about a color, I first consider how the color may serve the work of art and then I think about its psychological effect. The visual unity is achieved from the right or wrong combination of the form idea and color (and not necessarily in this order). In my opinion, one must "listen" to the object and understand its need. Each object has its own special needs.

Sometimes the object wants the exact opposite

This specific piece is suspended off the entrance frame of the space. The good represented by Clint Eastwood verses the bad represented by Lee Van Cleef. The works are reflected and merged into one another and when the viewer passes under the doorpost and between the works, his face is reflected on the works, so that in effect he disrupts the merger of the works in favour of his own facial reflection, thus, a new triad is created: 'the good, evil, and the viewer.'

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to a certain extent represent the contemporary ear. Like the decomposition of the video, I attach importance to the sound break and aspire to short, sharp sounds with a slightly less friendly tempo. In addition there are works where I create natural sound, which could be a result of movement within the object, movement of an engine, movement of water and so on.

The sound is material just as silence is material and I think it should be used according to the needs of the art piece. There is no single recipe for this, it is something that is more intuitive.

One must listen to the work to understand first whether it needs sound and if so what kind of sound... Does the chosen sound serve it or is it an excess... My starting point (following John Cage) is that silence is a kind of sound .

I think of sound as an additional layer of information, not just as something that accompanies the work, but a work in itself. The sound in my opinion should give additional meaning to the work, therefore I try not to create the sound myself but to hand it to someone who deals with sound. The sound for me is a type of auditory form, its purpose is to add depth or character to the work. There are works of art where sound is necessary and enriching, and without which they would appear anemic. On the contrary there are works that have a dominant visual content, in which case adding sound would weaken the visual content and in fact would create unnecessary excess.

In my works I prefer short digital metallic sounds, machine and robot sounds, sounds that

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Uriel Ziv

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objects intended for a number of exhibitions that I am to participate in. These objects are doable because the budget necessary is minimal.

Parallel to this I am working on a number of large projects, including sculptures that combine the performance of the audience who observes them, an algorithm that creates objects, and more.

When I am immersed in the creative process, understanding/realization of the audience is not important to me. It is more important to me that the parts of the work combine into one work of art. Also important to me is the experimental aspect: It is important for me to try and create a new language even at the cost of misunderstanding or antipathy. I believe that the art viewer should not receive what is familiar to him in a wat that he is familiar with. I think of the viewer as a curious and open person and when I create a new work of art I want to undermine his previous perceptions. I really don’t think I should please or satisfy him, on the contrary, I must make it difficult, troubling and expansive to his thinking that is the purpose of art in my opinion.

These are large and ambition projects relative to what I usually do. Unfortunately, these projects will not materialize soon because there is a need for a budget and in Israel the budget for art is ridiculous. In addition, I would be very happy to cooperate with artists and creators from abroad.

This is something I lack and I believe that besides bridging between cultures it can contribute to my own personal development.

Finally, I would like to thank you, abens, and readers for this accurate and profound interview, it has been a pleasure.

An interview by and

Luckily I have a huge need to create and therefore I am constantly in a creative process.

At the moment I am working on a number of

, curator curator

Photos by

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Lives and works in Tel-Aviv, Israel

ART Habens

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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An interview by and

, curator curator

Roy Harary

Hey...well my ride in Haifa definitely smells like teen spirit!....I was born and raised in suburb city in Israel...never been exposed to art nor went to a museum before…but had passion to create at a very young age I just didn’t call that art...when i was 13 i got my own computer and started messing with photoshop, flash, cubase...taught myself everything...before there were youtube’s tutorials and people print screened every step!

Getting to periphery place as Haifa kind of got me out of my element at first... I mean it is a neglected poor city..and its was the first time I moved out of mom's house and found out you had to pay bills, clean, cook and there is no money out there just for being artist..had to waiter people...couldn't stand that! Plus my heart got broken and needed to get on time for

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class! Haifa university and generally the whole city are very diversified..I met friends who identified as palestinians...a rare thing in the suburbs...

All of that gave me nice soil for my art..and i’m glad i got myself some education!

I guess I used to wanting people to notice shit..make them think about “it” in kind of a twisted romantic way...nowadays i feel like putting some light in my work. can't say what is the exact central idea in all of my works but would like it to be about finding joy in yourself….I want that my viewers will realize that they have inner halo but it also comes with responsibility.

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Roy Harary

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I think it’s funny you just noticed it...this project is almost 4 years old and i had time to hate it and love it agian. Anyway I remember this project been originally shown in all bubble wrapped up room and there was dark lighting and bubble wrap rollers so you can sit on and watch the video. It was very cool…. When I did package106 I was on it ALL THE TIME.. i was with my camera a lot!..shooting tons of GB...recorded songs on my phone..sketching...everything...In hindsight maybe that’s why it turned such an expressionist moody work!

As for today...I don't put as much pressure as i used to just get something done to be out there so i can update my youtube channel..I might sit 3 days in row getting a soundtrack done and put it under a secret name or maybe just keep it to myself..so today there are no rules or under the surface reason to create..when i feel my brain wants to burst a baby i let it.

G! I am thinking about that (the role of art) a lot…I used to think art supposed to change things and criticize the big brother but that's not only.

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Roy Harary

Yes...sometime it seems like artist’s role depends on things...mostly shit...But I would really like to believe it’s not...otherwise it would be like surrendering the machine. As for concrete answer...Thing is right now I’m questioning the definition of art...some people making a phenomenal from doing yoga, dancing in the club, making smoothies…that’s the doorman job to glorified it...I think that good art’s supposed to heal the artist..then through his experience it will be able to heal other people...that way the core of the work does not depend on anything and is able to make a change.

I think it’s great I just can sit on my couch and get exposed to amazing art works, find new artists and stuff... As for art producing you can call me queen of lowtech! But that’s because you really just can’t keep up the speed with those things... and certainty I don’t like to pay money for doing my art...pretty sure if I had bought one of those 3D printers I wouldn't leave my house for like month!

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Roy Harary

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Oh! My! God! Absolutely! I don’t know if there’s a line anymore…“Image” has taken over reality. People should read “L'ordre du Discours” by Michel Foucault and actually all of the Post-structuralism Philosophy I started with this @itsmeroyd thing about 7 years ago and at that time social media blew up and people were obsessed with becoming internet persona and go viral...getting an exotic nickname was part of the deal! @Itsmeroyd is the result of an outside look yet wanting to be a part of this “global-culture-club”....I’m glad i didn’t make it to this club!Nowadays seems like the virial been switched to “fake news”! Forgot to say that I also majored my B.A in communication and media so definitely got to say a lot about this topic!

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Roy Harary

I'm bisected...I don't think technology can create innovative works...maybe it can make the process easier..and that’s part of the thing.. Like why not just to 3D print my sculpture?! If it’s a good work then it’s a good work.. Moreover i really love putting my works on the internet under @itsmeroyd and other characters….Makes it more accessible and free. Still this “new sensibility” by the new media, new tech is framing what being artist means. I don’t want to find myself as an artist endlessly quoting myself...but like this time with brand new money (=tech) on it.

People aware...We even started “crying in social media” genre! It takes a “new sensibility” to cry in front of a phone or to write mean stuff about others in front of a screen...And that’s why I said that nowadays i’m trying to literally light up my works...profess live performance..with a human touch! Be sure it is changing something!

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I love the audience! Used to scare them for attention!... Also used to/ still a dj and it thrills me to see i can make the crowd dance; So YES...every time i set up a project i think how and what to give to the audience. I guess the terms and the language change from project to project since i like to try different medias....There is this one performance which I give a full body swedish massage for a lucky person from the audience..the results are different every time!

Thank you! Heartwarming!

Right now there is upcoming exhibition in “Beit Ha-Gefen” gallery in Haifa which will show 3 works that i have been working on with two young female palestinian artists….probably I’ll put it online at some point!

As for future plans...I want to be a rockstar artist! I want to crowd surf! But seriously..I

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in London, United Kingdom

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Sarah Sayeed

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video, 2013

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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, curator curator

Sarah Sayeed Sarah Holly Sayeed graduated from Central st Martins in 2012. She currently is actively working in mixed media in her studio in Brixton and also lives in Brixton amongst her contemproaries.

Since leaving University Sarah embarked on a mission to record and document Stories in London.Sarah has has solo exhibitions in Dlaston, Camberwell, Brixton and Peckham.Sarah has found out her truth of this city through the eyes and ears of the dwellers, and presented in 2013, and 2014 multiple sonic art productions at a theatre in Peckham. In a search for truth and life Sarah has documented her findings thorugh the mediums of theatre , photograph and song.

Her colaborations have been with Helen David of English Eccentrics, The Science museum, Fashion and fine artist Isabel Castro Jung, Susu Laroche, Barbour,Steve Dale Petit, Producer Suren Seniviratne and Fine artist Adam Gabriel Mercer who she met at Central st Martins.She has had work shown in Art Harbens Magazine, Overview Magazine, and Hunter Magazine. She has had regular shows of her artwork in South and East London and has been Part of the South London annual art show for two years.

The aesthetic problem for me is a big one- the abolishment of the aesthetic, totally. The destruction of the foundation of human needs, the

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Sarah Sayeed

enjoyment principle has been eradicated to give way to a life built for temporary utility. The language of aesthetics in the urban or rural environmnt speak directly to the person residing there. Structures for life are undermining the user continually, for example, the use of signs with neon colours, the worship of the clock, the amount of advertisments, and streets built for vehicles without consideration for life forms and as a result stripping thm of theyr’e identity. What might be referred to as culture is packed in tidy corners and then swept away again, (this can be seen in the closing down of so many cultural hubs in london Madamne Jojos for example.); this vanishing point is what i am capturing, those persons or environments who in the daily struggle of life have somehow escaped daily trappings like weeds that climb around pavings stones.

The real work beings when i step away from my connection to these strata, the life of creating work stands outside of these limits. , one must see the world as fluid and objective. The most important writers and thinkers are those who can celebrate life and therefore be very effected when someting isn’t right for society or nature as a whole, Bachelard is the single most important thinker in relation to my

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work- I am filled with emotion just thinking of him. He does not critisize, he analyses in detail every aspect of the senses in relation to our environments, rather than inciting a new way of life in detail he is enamoured to seek out how our bodies respond and overlap with the infinate-his work has had a profound effect upon me. amongst others are Jung, Lefebvre, Guy Bourdin, Calvino, Foucault, and Baudrillard.

Chaotic! In a word! There is no ususal set up, something which i’m working on! I have cameras, i have books, i have musical intruments, and when i have dedicated myself to thought, i will have worked up an appetite for a creation, this is not some special process available to me and a few others, this is it believe a natural cycle for all humans. Its hard to talk about themes being central, I change and meander , as thoughts and processes in my body change, this fluidity is remarkable and leads me

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Sarah Sayeed

to other areas of thought, i would say my body as a template has an aesthtic more than a theme. My thoughts are transposed into life thorugh my work, and these thoughts are usually philosophical questions of my surroundings put quite simply i try to reach a pont of meditation with the city, and route out what i find facinating in it, my work is a celebration of life in the city

ART Habens

work jobs we don’t want to for not enough to live on, so i refused to be a part of any of it and took to the streets searching for answers from an older generation at first, then other subcultures. It was my way of understsanding the reality i found myself and my peers in.

A walk is a work of art, a martin luther king speech is a work of art, is a rythm that moves souls, it is a rythm that has become political , but its approach is musical. a work of art is a group of teenagers that create a system of jumping on skateboards in a tunnel, they bcome indistinguishable from a pack of wolves and a flock of seagulls, a shaol of fish, they become themslves through devining theyre surroundings and becominig one with them. This is self determination, and the origin of creation.

i came upon my subjects by walking through London, depressed, not having a future, as most of londons’ younger generation have found themselves dissasociated, we can’t afford to have houses, we are expected to

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Sarah Sayeed

I believe the body maps its surroundings and i’ll leave it to this prehistoric entity to guide me. My work is not critical, so much as a celebration of the life which escapes these daily trappings, or makes the best use of them they

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can. Hollywood is a total escape, this is interesting, as an escape is not a new order of life, it is not another option, or access to a better life in the real world, it is an imaginary realm of existnce and contemplation, it is a unnifier not

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Sarah Sayeed

spiritually, but sensitvely. It separetes the real and the unreal blurring the lines of what is systomatic, and what is exemplary -instance the film Taxi taking the real and presenting the sense of the real, this mans life, for so many to

ART Habens

understand the pressures of rigid social strucures and they’re effect upon mental health.

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Sarah Sayeed

I dont’ see much art in public space, what is deemed to be ‘art’ any how.

The object of a piece of work is to unite the viwer with themselves and the devine. This can be seen in boxing rings, nightclubs and skate parks, more than in galleries. If the city wants more art, create more free psaces, where the structures are built to conjure free movement within the individual. The south bank space it hink is sucesfull in this, as well as the barbican. These segregated spaces that allow the body to creat evapourating shape with theyre bodies, freely without dication, this invisible city is where real movement takes place, i am also lucky to be part of a large studio that is transitory.

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The camera does an important thing- it represents time as a phantom tools are so important, they can unlock the present when used in theyre true sense, the artist, the maker, the craftsman even, to create work, must submit himself or herself totally to the media. In good cooking on must supplicate him/her self to the devinity of the animal, or vegetable, the woodworker, must be in absolute admiration of the wood, and feel in himself a sense of unity with his medium if he is to produce the spectacular object, which is less important, and only a reference, and evidence of the happening.

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Sarah Sayeed

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The commitment should come if the viewer is instinctively swayed towards the work, if the viewer

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Sarah Sayeed

somehow becomes empathetic toward the object, it has the power of releasing something within them.

When posed with a piece of art work it should accompish a sens of something or other, the viewer may walk a way with just a feeling when looking at a work of art, but those abstract feelings can turn to thoughts, and in to concrete actions. This sharing of unvierals truths is an importnat role for the artist to have in society; an ability to evoke truth upon the many.

somthing i cling to, not copying so to speak but inaately recognising somting that works for someone else be it a good attitude to life, or a piece of clothing that you relate to.that you in turn pick up. Its made my life a better one i’ve learnt so much and grown up so much , being inspired by every subject, who i’m instinctively drawn to. I trust my instincts, they bring me back to myself . i hope the audience experiences part of my journey in each of the works

Photography has really helped me understand my surroundings, and overcome my feelings of disssasotiation, my next efforts will be to put in to a form, the more abstract recognitions of rythm that the city and its inhabitants have, this will most likely lead to sonic art, and more abstract photography and installation.

In every piece of work ive done , without noticing, I have been performing wtih the camera, it is an act , and i become everyone of my subjects, in some small way, whether its been to wear the same sunglasses, adopt expressions, etc, mimicry is survival , and its

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Thank you this interview has helped me reflect, which is very important.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

Lives and works in Los Angeles, California

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Jana Charl

ART Habens

video, 2013

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ART Habens

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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An interview by and

, curator curator

My curiosity and desire to study and analyze human behavior has been an integral part of my artwork. I explored a broad liberal arts education, concentrating on interdisciplinary studies with a focus on art and psychology.

Encouraged by my art mentor at the University of Redlands, California, I attended Waseda University, Tokyo, for one year.

Nonverbal communication trumped verbal which created the perfect environment to focus on a largely visual experience. I was especially inspired by patterns and color combinations.

Jana Charl

Although I grew up in an environment where art was always an important part of my life, my parents viewed it as a hobby and not as a profession. As a consequence, I struggled with allowing myself to pursue a career in art.

Instead of studying for a Masters in Fine Art, I attended the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies at the University of California San Diego. During my second year of studies I took a leave of absence and did not return. After completely changing my environment by moving to Zurich, I felt freer to explore my identity as an artist. I worked at a top advertising agency as a graphic designer and art director. A copywriter introduced me to polymer clay and curated my first international group exhibition at Ars

Photo by Jessica Klein

Futura Galerie, where we created 1000 polymer clay sculptures.

Studying international relations and living abroad (Nuremberg, Germany; Tokyo, Japan; Zurich, Switzerland; and Pesaro, Italy) contributed to my international awareness. My aesthetics have a multi-cultural influence based on visually absorbing, both consciously and unconsciously, my surroundings. Daily encounters and observations in my current Los Angeles environment are translated into

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Jana Charl

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Jana Charl

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my works of art. In particular, living in a bodycentric, image-conscious city has shaped my signature incorporation of stylized bodies.

My first public installation, Venus of Adams Square on view now (May 3rd - July 28th, 2017; the proposal can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/178079167), is of an oversized Venus on a throne surrounded by floating flowers. I created the work from my own wardrobe and fabric I’ve collected, mainly from downtown Los Angeles’s fabric district.

The resources readily available in this city also shape the work I’m able to create.

Serving as a visual example of my statement is the mixed media painting Locked In. I built and painted the wood box; mounted a photo that I printed on canvas; painted graphic bars with acrylic on canvas and glued them onto the wood and sewed them onto the attached wire mesh to represent words (similar to a commercial art technique of using blind text as a placeholder for actual text). Then, I attached found objects; sewed edges with wire; and painted and sewed on my signature female figure. As a result, I combined the crafts of woodwork and sewing with fine art painting and photography, along with commercial art layout.

As an artist I believe that the more tools I have available to communicate, the more freedom I have to creatively and effectively express concepts and reach varied audiences.

I rebel against any restrictions on my creative practice. It is a struggle for me to draw boundaries between the various disciplines

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Jana Charl

and art practices; I would rather blur them. In the representative works selected by the Art Haber team, the stylized representation of the female form is my signature, recurring motif.

How I produce the form and incorporate it into

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my artwork varies depending on the materials and technique that I choose. The process of selecting and working with diverse elements is one of the challenges that motivates and inspires my work.

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Jana Charl

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Conveying relevant issues, based on historical and contemporary significance, is at the heart

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Jana Charl

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beliefs. Viewer participation is is important to me, whether it is passive observation or an engaging dialog. Ideally, my work stimulates both emotional and intellectual responses.

Unconscious and emotional associations based on one’s unique experiences as well as collective ones; along with the conscious, intentional, intellectual layers of meaning and analysis.

My use of graphic bars to represent words and sentences came out of a desire to focus on a visual impression unencumbered by words and language barriers. The purpose has evolved into an intention for interactive storytelling, whereby the viewer can tell the story in her/his words. Although I create a title which is the “spirit” or theme, the details of the narration are formed by individual interpretations.

Recently I completed a three-month artist residency in Zurich, Switzerland. As part of the project, I set up my studio on one floor of a gallery and the public could anonymously view me from the sidewalk level window or step inside to observe and discuss my work. In addition, there was an artist talk open to the community. I was able to interact with spectators firsthand because I was available six days-a-week while creating mixed media paintings for an exhibition at the gallery. The opportunity revealed the engagement I wanted to provoke: curiosity demonstrated by discussions on both aesthetics and topics addressed. The exchange and involvement went even further with visitors collecting and giving me items to incorporate in my paintings.

of my work. I specifically address feminist issues, perceptions of women’s roles, identity, and gender relationships largely due to my encounters, observations, and consequent

In general, I admire an eclectic mix of individual works of art, rather than a specific affinity to a movement. In Los Angeles there are overwhelmingly frequent and numerous

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exhibitions along with diverse venues to view artwork. I tend to be a recluse focusing on my own production but can easily step out of my studio to experience others’ approaches.

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I am impressed by the contemporary art scene in the sense of the freedom to explore.

However, my work is most influenced by historical figures and works. Both the Venus of

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Willendorf figurine and Niki de Saint Phalle’s Nanas have inspired my stylization of the female form and “Venus” theme. Beginning with my first exhibition of miniature venuses

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of polymer clay in Zurich and continuing to today, as seen in my larger than life-sized Venus of clothing and textiles (installation Venus of Adams Square). In addition, Ombra

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della Serra (Shadow of the Evening), the stylized long and thin Etruscan statuette, and Alberto Giacometti’s elongated interpretations of the sexes have affected my depictions.

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Jana Charl

At any stage of the creative process from concept through completion, I am inspired by what various techniques can elicit. I especially find inspiration in the selection of materials with the technique as the means to give expression.

Implicit in all of my work is that it is made by hand and distinguishable from machine manufactured or computer-generated items.

Although all of my works are meticulously constructed, as an intention I do not refine them to the point of perceived perfection. In the case of my mixed media paintings featured, I purposely mix pigments instead of using colors directly from the manufacturer, and I do not thoroughly blend them. To add to the textural effect, I tend to layer the paint unevenly because I prefer a painterly look over a computer-generated solid flat color. Moreover, I do not use aids to create perfectly painted lines and demarcations. I work with my breath to steady my strokes and I’ll paint and repaint until I’m satisfied. Squares are not perfectly square, circles are not precisely round. It is especially important to me, after years of working in commercial art, to distinguish my paintings from digitally created ones.

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Both randomness and improvisation play a part when I’m experimenting with a medium. I would define the “randomness” in my work by the fact that I don’t precisely cut, weave, and sew.

Although I am free to depart from an original concept during the process, the result I seek to accomplish is typically planned, by sketching on paper or in my mind. The “improvisation” would be the evolution as the work is in progress or the reworking of a previously finished piece. My process of “disrupting” the canvas is for textural effects and cutting into the canvas is liberating.

Selecting and working with a medium or mixed media is a significant part of the brainstorm and development of my ideas.

For example, in the proposal for Tables, Chandeliers and Selfies (https://vimeo.com/177848439) I was working with the concept of duration. I had photographed piles of scrap metal for future sculpture projects and one particular photograph of bale feeders for cattle stood out. From that image, I developed the entire project and a connection to the Faena Art Center. As an installation project, in order to fill the space, my ideas interplayed with a mix of media.

Similarly, I weld scrap metal that is rusty, has paint, grease and dirt remnants resulting in splatters and uneven welding beads. I handhold the plasma-cutter torch producing cutting lines that waver with by my breath and heartbeats. All for the purpose of maintaining a certain unpolished crudeness in the final sculptures. In order for my polymer clay sculptures to not be mistaken for plastic, I deliberately leave fingerprints and uneven areas. Experimenting with 3D printing, I prefer the output that is not perfectly smooth, similar to the early inkjet printers that produced pixelated images.

Ultimately, the goal of my artwork is to elicit awareness and a dialog concerning the issues I address. All audiences are not receptive to my style of art and messages. I do not believe in altering my language to cater to a particular audience, especially if it dilutes the message I am trying to convey. For example, I believe my artwork is suitable for all ages and body image is healthy topic for discussion. However, there are parents who feel my artwork is inappropriate for children and will not bring them to my exhibitions (in the U.S.).

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At the same time, I am very satisfied when my work is positively received by others. I do appreciate feedback and conversation because I do not want to create artwork in a vacuum.

Whether I allow it to impact my artwork depends on how I internalize it. In a productive sense, it can enhance my development as an artist.

Finally, I believe that the impact of an exhibition can be delayed as one’s understanding evolves.

On May 3rd I installed my Venus of Adams Square which will be on display until July 28th, 2017, at a mini gas station as part of the Adams Square Mini Park located in Glendale, California (the project can be viewed at https://vimeo.com/217074726).

Three large-scale (12 ft x 5 ft / 1.5 m x 3.66 m) prints on vinyl of my painting Sunrise will be displayed as part of a three-month installation in Watertown, Massachusetts, curated by the Mosesian Center for the Arts. The opening reception is on May 19th.

May 21st - 28th I will participate in an artist residency called “Paint for Georgia” in Mtskheta, Georgia, which includes two exhibitions. When I return to Los Angeles I will begin planning a landscape installation art project in Central Oregon. More information is and will be available on my website: www.janacharl.com.

As I challenge myself by exploring various means to creatively communicate relevant topics, I plan to seek out opportunities, including collaborations, to create artwork which will reach a broader global audience.

An interview by and

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, curator curator

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Lives and works in Belgium

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Achiel Jones

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video, 2013

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Lars Vilhelmsen

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, curator curator

Achiel Jones

Hello

abens!

artist such as Pierre Alechinsky and art movements such as Futurism and expressionism, especially Der Blaue Reiter.

Thank you for having me and the opportunity given.

In my doubt of what to do I visited different schools including KASK. Visiting KASK really triggered me and gave me the eager to study fine arts, Media arts.

To be honest I didn’t really know what I was going to do after high school.

It was also my last two years of high school that I really got into art and music.

Studying there was actually what I expected. Meaning the chance to brighten my knowledge about and discovering art.

Thanks to my parents I got into Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and David lynch. And thanks to one of my teachers I got into

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The best things that an art academy can offer are the teachers that guide and teach you and the workspaces that you need to use to the fullest.

Thanks to my teachers I discovered several artists and Philosophers that really inspired and determined my work. Think Jonas Mekas, Ben Rivers, Ben Russel,Merleau Ponty,‌ Studying there provided a new and clarifying input and ways to think about my work and to create new one.

For me It was the place were i've started to create my vision for my work.

I think the multidisciplinary approach is more of a logical chose.

As you already know I attempt to revel the deeper resonances of moments.

This idea or way of thinking raised by reading Merleau-Ponty's " Phenomenology

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of Perception" and the book: " MerleauPonty's Last Vision: A Proposal for the Completion of The Visible" by Douglas Beck Low. I was intrigued by the way people perceive moments and how their perceptions influences the experience of the moment itself.

Everyone perceives in a different way; everything is determined by different elements. This also means we preceive with all our senses, our memory and our way of thinking.

So if i want to make this come forward i need to use this multidisciplinary approach.

I also think that because of this the viewer and even myself can easier relate to what is happening.

I find it's great that these two works get related to Marc AugĂŠ.

Still these 2 works are linked and inspired by different philosophers.

It’s about the human condition but not as a metaphor. It's about the humans perception and experience.

A to B and not between and I saw some Trees today are a part of the research and

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there pretty much findings within that research.

For example A to B and not between is about the between. When some people travel from A to B they don’t pay attention to what's happening inbetween. They’re only focussed on the destination. But sometimes it’s what happens in between that can be more interested than the destination itself.

The Idea actually comes from John Dewey's 'Art as experience '. You have the aesthetic experience and Non- Aesthetic journey.

Non-aesthetic journeying is undertaken merely to arrive at the destination; any steps to shorten the trip are gladly taken.

Aesthetic journeying is undertaken for “the delight of moving about and seeing what we see.” Extending non-aesthetic experience may lead to frustration and impatience, whereas drawing out aesthetic experience may increase a feeling of pleasure.

I saw some trees today is related to Merleau - Ponty view on perception. Trees are things we see every day but don’t really pay attention to. Due to the fact that there everywhere.

If you think about it trees can determine or influence your perception of moments. They can determine the atmosphere of your surroundings. Every season trees can influence the perception and experience.

In some way the notion of non-lieu is similar to the perception of moments and how you experience them. Augé talks about places and non - places. A place can be defined as relational, historical and concerned with identity.

The rest would be “non-places”, such as for example highways, airports and

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supermarkets. places that are visible manifestations of globalization.

When AugÊ was in Talin for a lecture he emphasised that purely distinctive places or non-places do not exist – what might be a non-place to someone can be a place to someone else.

And what determines that? The perception of the person.

Everybody perceives in a different way but of course the perception can be influenced,depending on the person, by many different elements.

I think it depends what the content is of your work.

Is an artist personal experience translated in is his work? Yes it is.

I can't imagine how the personal experience can't be an indispensable part of a creative process.

The artist creation starts in his head. His perception and experience will determine how it will eventually be translated to the viewer. To get your work emotional connected to the viewer it has to be a personal translation.

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Maybe in some cases the work of an artist is a pure translation of certain research. Of course this is also discussable since the translation is subjective. It's the artist's translation or his personal interpretation of this research.

I like the way you could consider the work as as a search of the Ariadne's thread that conveys elusive information. Droommoord arised out of an old movie that was created

by Robbe's dad.

We tried to keep the core atmosphere of the movie but wanted to give the viewer a more intens and distinctive perception.

I don't think you can see my work as a reflection of the notion of chance.

Douglas Beck wrote that our moments in the past influence our present moments and our moments in the future.

The moments are maybe there by chance but since they're there what do you do with them?

So our perception in that moment is essentiel as it wil determine the perception and experience of the following moments.

That is what i also try to show in my work as if i try to precept my moments in a most conscious way.

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The role of the viewer is of course important. For me how they interpreted my work isn’t really important.

But in a way I want to create a moment for them. I want them to relate to my work. It has to be an emotional trigger to their memories and feelings.

Stanley Kubrick said a film is -or should bemore like music than like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. The theme, what's behind the emotion, the meaning, all that comes later.

The progression of moods and emotions should indeed be the basis of an art work. If the viewer can be aware of that then I've succeeded.

The awareness of that starts of course with the perception of the viewer.

Sound and images go hand in hand. For me personally moving images can't go without sound. Sounds makes half the film. Sound, music included, can strengthen our emotional reaction towards images. But it works also vice versa as images can

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deepen our emotional response to sound.

Sound can take away boundaries that an image can offer.

Dr Andrea Toma couldn't have said it better in a thesis about the relationship between sound and image: I propose that sound with its physical, sculptural and spatial impact offers a ‘way out’ of the constraints of our image addiction or rather ‘a way in’ to reconfiguring audio-visual alignments — allowing us to reinvent our relation with images not as consumers but as active participants.

To answer this we first need to define what the role of an artist is today. Which is hard to do as the role has many definitions.

I think personally an artist choses his own role. The artist can lead, follow, provoke,...with the work he/she makes.

So it's not that the role changed but thanks to new global communication a new way of showing or fulfil that role was created.

The artist has an easier way to reach out to the world and show what they're are capable of and what they have to tell.

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I think this can be related to the questions about 'Droommoord'.

As I try to transform my work into a

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conscious perception of a moment it would be great that the viewer experience the same thing. But that actually isn't the most important thing for me. As I quoted Kubrick in this interview I'll like to do so once again. a film is -or should be- more like music than

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like fiction. It should be a progression of moods and feelings. I always hope I can move the audience.

That i can generated their feelings in positive way. Implement a moment that they want to keep of think about.

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Thank you for the great review and ask questions that brighten my view on my work.

At the moment I'm finishing up a movie. So keep on checking the site.

It needs some final touches regarding the soundscape and soundtrack.

The soundtrack is done by Thijs Troch. He's a musician I really recommend to check out.

Meanwhile I'm also working on a new movie completely in super8.

Adding more to the Fragmoment archive.

Besides that i'm also working on a project together with Davy De Clercq (founder of fromspace.store. ) We're trying to see if we can combine streetwear and the wonderful way of telling stories.

How I see my work evolving I can't really tell you right now. But I do hope my archive can keep growing and that I can keep doing what i'm doing. I don't know if i'll succeed but in the meanwhile I have lot of fun doing it.

An interview by and

, curator curator

So I think I consider the audience reception as measuring tool to see if my work succeeds in generating feelings and in being consistents elements that will leave you wanting more.

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