Tallieu Art Office

Kiki Smith at Centre de la gravure et l'image imprimée - La Louvière

Centre de la gravure et l'image imprimée
La Louvière (B)

KIKI SMITH
ENTRE CHIEN ET LOUP
(IN THE TWILIGHT)

The title of Kiki Smith’s exhibition refers to that particular hour when day becomes night, that moment when the dog must protect the sheep and when the wolf makes use of the darkness to come out of the wood!

All of Kiki Smith's art works oscillate between light and darkness, evolve from the quiet nature towards the untamability of certain animals, enter the world of the night, that particular moment when pleasure and fear come together.

Sometimes, the artist speaks without any taboos of the bestiality hiding in humanity. She reveals our unfathomable fears, what is haunting the depths of our intimacy and what we would like to keep hidden. Sometimes, she juxtaposes fragments of images of her body in disturbing positions or of female organs, in an attempt to undermine the traditional representations of the stereotypical image of a woman.

However, by screaming at the moon, the wolf – just like Kiki Smith - also refers to its strength; that of the spiritual energy and of the unconsciousness to which universal knowledge is accessible. They both get connected with the world, its myths and symbols, as well as with the laws of nature.

After all, the blue hour, another metaphor of this uncertain interval between day and night, is also considered the best hour to smell the scent of flowers and to hear the birds sing. In many of her most recent works, Kiki Smith tries to capture and translate this ephemeral symphony; it’s an allegory of a world in which concord and serenity would reign for a brief moment.

Entre Chien et Loup

Teun Vonk at Betweter Festival

Betweter Festival
TivoliVredenburg, Utrecht (NL)

With The Physical Mind, Vonk seeks to let participants experience the relation between their physical and mental states by applying physical pressure to the body. The installation consists of two inflatable objects. The participant lays down in between, is lifted up and gently squeezed between the two inflatable objects. The lifting creates an unstable feeling, a slightly stressful sensation that is directly contrasted with a secure feeling of being gently squeezed between two soft objects. Paradoxically, this forced physical stimulus reduces feelings anxiety and paradoxically stress and the flight- or fight-response disappear. The participant experiences and increased sensitivity to stimuli, normalised alertness and a calm state of mind. The positive effects of this increased receptivity can continue for a few hours after the experience. The installation evokes empathy in bystanders who witness a participant undergo the experience.

Betweter Festival
Teun Vonk

D.I.Y - Manual for a potential future

Halogaland Teater
Tromsø (NO)

D.I.Y. - Manual for a Potential Future - A performance with dance, installation, music, primal scream, poetry and fermentation. Five self absorbed performance artists are excavating themselves from dystopia. Todays society suffers a crisis of future. We are trapped in the realities of the now. More than ever we need utopian visions. More than ever we need to raise questions. The result is a subjective and beautiful research of our potential collective futures. 

Halogaland Teater
D.I.Y. - Manual for a Potential Future 
STATEX COLLECTIVE

Alternatives Interactions: Conference David Bowen at Scopitone 2019

Scopitone 2019
Nantes (FR)

Conference "Alternative Interactions" with David Bowen and Andreas Lutz at Scopitone 2019 about new interactions between humans, nature and new technologies.

Conference "Alternative Interactions"
David Bowen

Lawrence Malstaf at Scopitone 2019

Scopitone 2019
Nantes (F)

PAVILION 02011-12 - Two large transparent sails are swirling and circling through the space by means of a motorised flagpole. The installation transforms the space with a dramatic choreography, and analogue sound, sometimes violent, sometimes very delicate. The visitor can lay down beneath this synthetic cloud and observe patterns emerging and disappearing. 

Scopitone 2019
Lawrence Malstaf

Kris Verdonck at Scopitone 2019

Scopitone 2019
Nantes (F)

MASS #2 is a poetic, moving landscape. A graphite-grey mass flows slowly as if it was water. The matter appears light and yet heavy at the same time. And, as if tectonic plates are interacting, the spectator sees mountains and valleys created before his eyes, only to dissolve in the next instant. A living landscape, geology in a time-lapse. 

Scopitone 2019
Kris Verdonck

David Bowen at Scopitone 2019

Scopitone 2019
Nantes (F)

tele-present wind, 2019 consists of a series of 42 x/y tilting mechanical devices connected to thin dried plant stalks installed in a gallery and a dried plant stalk connected to an accelerometer installed outdoors. When the wind blows, it causes the stalk outside to sway. The accelerometer detects this movement transmitting the motion to the grouping of devices in the gallery. Therefore, the stalks in the gallery space move in real-time and in unison based on the movement of the wind outside.

Scopitone 2019
David Bowen

DETAIL at Kunstfest Weimar

Kunstfest Weimar 2019
Weimar (D)

A huge boulder hangs by a rope from the ceiling. As soon as the sun shines, it starts to rotate on its own axis. DETAIL is an installation by the Belgian theatre artist Kris Verdonck, presented for the first time at this year’s Kunstfest. A closed cycle of fascinating, but only apparent simplicity. In the tension between poetry and technology, weight and movement, mass and energy, the installation makes reference to fundamental questions of life. The rotating boulder thus becomes a symbol for acceleration and exhaustion, progress and ephemerality. Walter Gropius predicted that human ability to alter nature could become so enormous, that what we gain through technological advances might no longer be in proportion to what we could lose.

Kunstfest Weimar
Kris Verdonck

SOMETHING (out of nothing) at Kampnagel

Kampnagel - Internationales Sommerfestival 2019
Hamburg (D)

The future may be dark, but it comes with arresting visuals and powerful sounds: a synesthetic theater shock in the time of climate change.

Few in recent years have created disconcerting stage landscapes with as strong images as Kris Verdonck. The Belgian visual artist and theater maker has often been interested in existential questions and post-apocalyptic scenarios (at Kampnagel most recently in 2008). In his new intense and contemplative theater experience, he tackles the question of what it means to exist while awaiting an impending ecological catastrophe. What if nature becomes a nightmare and the quiet becomes endless? When we are actually gone? This work is thus a perfect sensory counterpart to our focus on climate-change-related cultures and ideologies.

In the transit zone between visual art and theater, installation and performance, dance and architecture, Verdonck embarks on a synesthetic trip to the end of the world with, among others, long-time ROSAS dancer Mark Lorimer, performer Ula Sickle and noise-cellist Leila Bordreuil. Like ghosts, they populate a magicbox-like theater landscape of impressive visual power – and, in our era of climate dystopia, remind us of the frailty of art and of human existence. A synesthetic theater shock in the time of climate change.

Kampnagel
Kris Verdonck/A Two Dogs Company
ICK Amsterdam

A Sense of Gravity at FILE - Electronic Language International Festival

FILE - Electronic Language International Festival
Art Gallery of Ruth Cardoso Cultural Center - SESI, São Paulo (BR)

Without us being aware, the body continuously adjusts itself to the gravitational pull. Artist Teun Vonk created an installation that lets you experience gravity anew. Immerse yourself in the transforming space of A Sense of Gravity and explore how your body reacts to the visual, tactile and bodily sensations. As you set foot on solid ground afterwards, your sense of gravity changes in a spectacular yet subtle way.

Teun Vonk asked himself: How can I challenge the perception of gravity?

With A Sense of Gravity, artist Teun Vonk created an installation that lets you experience gravity anew. For two years, Vonk researched how our human bodies perceive and react to gravity. Without us being aware, the body continuously adjusts itself to the gravitational pull and keeps itself in balance. This process seems effortless and self-evident. 

Teun Vonk asked himself: How can I challenge the logic of gravity, of the bodily perception of gravity, with a machine or installation? Can I expand the boundaries of our everyday perception of gravity?

Lying on his back on an elevated, floating platform in his studio, Vonk reflected on gravity and weightlessness. He realized that our bodies anticipate and adjust to what you see around you and the surface you walk on. It seems self-evident, especially since we spend most of our everyday life in interior spaces, with levelled floors. The artist set out to create a space that is not static, but that changes in size and shape. This interferes with the logic of spatial perception, ‘waking up’ your body’s sensory system and influencing gravity perception. Vonk experimented with visual and bodily sensations, taking his own physical reactions as a starting point. In close collaboration with designers and programmers, the artist developed the prototype for this immersive installation.

This technological, futuristic looking machine harbours a dynamic, soft space that invites the viewer to submit to a very personal physical experience. The entire body’s sensibility is engaged, an awareness that changes the viewer’s sense of gravity in a spectacular yet subtle way.

A Sense of Gravity is developed with support of CBK Rotterdam, Mondriaan Fonds, V2_lab for the unstable media and STRP.

https://www.teunvonk.nl/a-sense-of-gravity/
https://file.org.br