Max Colson focused on how architecture and landscape are framed by digital visualisations, 3D software and collective memories. He elaborated on his approach and research methods using technologies such as 3D Lidar laser scanning, 3D animation software, architectural drawings, internet comments and photography. The effect of the digital on the physical (and vice versa) – and how this dynamic impacts urban life, work, notions of community, and tradition – were some of the areas explored.
reports
The General’s Stork
Our friend Heba Y. Amin launched her book ‘The General’s Stork’, accompanying her Solo Show ‘When I see the future, I close my eyes‘.
Eva Eicker writes about the show: In her first UK solo show, Egyptian artist Heba Y. Amin presents ongoing projects combining various media such as video, appropriated archival photographs, performance and real footage. The title When I see the future, I close my eyes lends itself from the song ‘Excellent Birds’ (by Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson) for Nam June Paik’s reflection of digital media Good morning, Mr Orwell (1984). In her research-based practise, Amin is tackling the history of the technological influence on politics and the construction of territorial power with a focus on the Egyptian Revolution of 2011. This work could not be more relevant than during these times of global political threats.Inspired by the news in 2013 when Egyptian authorities detained a migratory stork for espionage because of an electronic device fitted to its body – Amin combines colonial narratives with the records of modern technology. In the video work As Birds Flying (2016), she depicts savannahs and wetlands, including settlements in Galilea (Northern Israel), which were captured in found drone footage. The audio presents dialogues from Egyptian actor Adel Imam’s film Birds of Darkness and discusses political tension, censorship, democracy and surveillance, such as “The government wants credibility, but no one trusts them.” Opposite this work, the artist presents wallpaper composed of appropriated archival aerial shots of Palestine and its history over time, again mimicking the (spying) bird’s perspective. The General’s Stork (2016-ongoing) shows a stork’s life and its famous owner Lord Edmund Allenby in Cairo, the British High Commissioner for Egypt and the Sudan from 1919 to 1925. In the photographs the artist appropriates the bird’s colour: flipping from b/w to colour. The work immediately gains a manipulated artificiality, intensified by the stork’s tall, out-of-proportion (but factual) appearance. Here she mashes up reality and appropriation, culminating in a speculative yet satirical approach. “What does it read like in a different context? I wanted to erase and dominate the narrative”, Amin remarked when we met.This ties over to her second project, Operation Sunken Sea (2018-ongoing); installed as a long table with flat lightboxes in a dimly lit space, the work evokes a governmental feel to it. At one end of the room is a b/w portrait of the artist – powerful, tall, a quasi-persona of a dictator. Opposite on the rear wall is a video projection of Amin’s speech recorded in Malta 2018 in front of a live audience. Stitching together quotes from famous dictators ranging from Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini to Former Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev – the artist is mimicking dictators and proposes a solution to the so-called migration crisis by relocating the Mediterranean Sea within the continent of Africa. Occasional and affirmative sounding (if not very staged) cheering interrupts the overall silence of the piece or space, suggesting a focussed and serious listening is required. The lightboxes feature archival material supporting and recording the early twentieth century utopian visions of draining the Mediterranean Sea supported by various world leaders and scientists. This also includes a re-staging of Herman Soergel’s portrait, where Amin poses as the German engineer claiming to unite Europe and Africa as one continent to gain power, which the New York Times called at the time a “utopian phantasm” (14.4.1929). In 1956 a confidential CIA recommendation to Eisenhower proposed to funnel water and ‘create’ peace in the Middle East, stating it hoped “it would keep Nasser’s mind on other matters, because he needs some way to get off the Soviet Hook.”It is easy to become completely absorbed by the sheer visual and audio absurdity of human megalomania. While the politicians seek justification for their action or settlements with the proof of technology or photographs – the artist is taking them out of context opening the discourse: “Can you look at them and remove the context?”The third work, the multi-channel video installation Project Speak2Tweet (2011 – ongoing) features anonymous voice messages left at an online platform initiated by a group of programmers as response to the Egyptian Governments’ Internet shutdown during the 2011 uprising. Posted on Twitter, the uncensored messages by activists and the public resulted in moving messages to update families and friends. Here the artist gives a voice to the people – and the world was listening. Most touching is a man leaving a message not knowing if he will return from his trip to Cairo’s central square. Brilliantly installed as a metal construction, the visitor navigates looped snapshots of destroyed urban structures in Cairo as though meandering through a prison-like interior representing a corrupt dictatorship.For a short-lived moment, this work resonates as a good example of technology in juxtaposition to the other two bodies of work. This is nothing like the unstable-democratic realm and the ideal of ‘never trust the internet’, which we are adopting as norms. The messages are not publicly accessible anymore, and saved on the Twitter server.Eventually the paranoia of stork-espionage was discredited and evidently the bird was part of migration research by zoologists. Subsequently released, the bird was apparently caught and eaten. Without simplifying the complex themes, the exhibition equally manages not to overload the experience in the space and offers plentiful resources. The artist brilliantly dissipates the distinction between the truth and narrative in her projects by manipulating archival material and mimicking the political language and fascist mannerisms to open up debates. One is also left with a bitter aftertaste – the shifting between absurdity and reality is aching. The satirical element is overshadowed by the fact this is not shocking rhetoric anymore: we have become very numb to the increasing politicisation of news and media.
Kinemastik in Gozo
Roxman Gatt screened her performance piece ‘But Love left no Room for Hydration‘ @Kinemastik 16 Festival in Gozo & Malta.
I carried you with my horns
When escaping metador
Your hands holding
Onto me whilst
You rode me
We just kept driving
En route, escaping
Heartbreak and sad tunes
Between your thighs
So wet with sweat
Of fear of death
Against my neck
Mother was wailing
She was punished
For failing
We rode past her
Witnessing the disaster
Not once we asked her
Wether she is in
Need of plaster.
(poem by Roxman Gatt)
Roxman Gatt (1989 Mosta, Malta)
Lives and works in London
www.roxmangatt.com
New Maltese short films premiering during the third instalment of the 16th Kinemastik International Short Film Festival taking place in three partner cinemas around Malta and Gozo today and tomorrow.
These are Stephanie Sant’s film Perpetual Child, Samira Damato’s short Ħallini Ħanini and Liquid Dreams by Malta-based Columbian film-maker Andres Felipe Algeciras Marquez.
Other local film-makers competing this year are UK-based, Maltese artist Roxman Gatt with his experimental film But Love Left No Room for Hydration and Amy Azzopardi’s Room 23, which won the Most Creative and Original Concept award at the Malta Youth Film Festival 2020.
The programme, curated by Emma Mattei, consists of 16 short films in total, from 12 different countries, which will be shown at the Spazju Kreattiv Cinema in Valletta, Eden Cinemas in St Julian’s and Citadel Cinema in Victoria.
AI: Love and Artificial Intelligence
AI is a pun. It is the pronunciation of “love” in Chinese pinyin, and at the same time, stands for “Artificial Intelligence” in English. The two alphabets express the exhibition’s focus, which is to present the love that this generation has acquired in the age of social networking. The exhibition discusses the emotional decisions under the influence of algorithms, love affairs in the online environment, and the physical intimacies in long-distance relationships (Eros); It also resonates the sympathies woven by big data, which gathers people with similar ideologies and excludes those who disagree (Philia). Luc Ferry once said that “love never comes without hatred; they are probably two inseparable passions, if only because love leads us to hate those who hurt the people we love.”
The exhibition is designed as a dichotomous structure. Inspired by the typical “swipe right to like, swipe left to dislike” mechanism, it starts with a virtual online dating app that leads the audience to two different spaces. It is a metaphor for our manipulated emotions and speaks about romantic online relationships through an intertextual narrative. These romantic relationships have been perceived as “natural” interactions without being in the same physical space, groundless affection, and even remote performances of sexual desire. For millennials, the internet provides more freedom for expressing their instinctual egos while the physical world and people seem to be distant. These subtle emotions connect to our “inner-selves” are spread across the fiber optic network ubiquitously, raising the question that if our connection to the virtual domain means the detachment to the real world. Simultaneously, the layout of the exhibition is a spatial representation of our online behavior, meaning that every time one chooses to like or dislike, click or unclick, the algorithm generates the user’s data packet and direct the online route through the privacy permissions. We have literally no authentic choice among the numerous options. By “collaborative filtering” and “autocomplete” function (e.g. “Recommended for you” on Amazon, “Who to Follow” on Twitter, and “Topic you might like” on Quora), network science follows its default logic: “Birds of a feather flock together.” It generates social bubbles, which leads to discourse polarization, the proliferation of identity politics, and deeper divisions of our cultural and political landscape.
Now connect to the Internet, type in “AI” and searched for “Love”, I see people shouting, singing, mourning, feeling, fantasizing, and contemplating in struggles about gaining and losing love. It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.[1]With regard to Love and AI, we experience the featured artists’ tales through the spectrum of their works, and rethink the emotional and technological circumstances of our time.
[1] Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali
About Curator
Jenny CHEN Jiaying, writer and curator. She is now having a PhD program of Western Philosophy at Eastern China Normal University. She holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Department of Art History of China Academy of Art and received her Master of Arts degree from Lancaster University in the UK. She has contributed to media such as Artforum (CN), Artshard and NOWNESS. Recent Projects include: “Copernicus”, E.M.Bannister Gallery of Rhode Island College, Providence, U.S.A (2019); “Li Hanwei: Liquid Health”, Goethe Space, Shanghai (2019); “First edition of the Shanghai Curators Lab”, Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, Shanghai (2018). Jenny’s other academic activities include the First Annual Conference of Network Society “Forces of Reticulation” roundtable and Huayu Forum of Art, etc.
Her article “Post-Internet Art Inside and Outside the Chinternet” was included in the collection of essays Forces of Reticulation published by China Academy of Art Press. Co-writing and editing of Shanghai Contemporary Art Archival Project 1998-2010, was published by MOUSSE in 2017.
About Hyundai Blue Prize
The Hyundai Blue Prize prioritizes creativity and sustainability over experience level when evaluating applicants. Each year, emerging Chinese curators submit exhibition proposals based on a theme that reflects Hyundai’s long-term vision. Up to six shortlisted curators will be offered a ‘One-on-One Mentorship’ from junior and senior jury members, who help applicants to prepare their final proposals, make connections within the art world, and explore their full potential.
About Hyundai Motorstudio
Hyundai Motorstudios are brand experience spaces that reflect the company’s artistic spirit and experimental approach to art, design and technology. This is where “motor,” a word used in the automobile industry, and “studio,” a word used to describe a space for contemplation and creation, meet in a manner accessible to the public.
In Dark Times We Must Dream With Open Eyes @dorothea.space
In Dark Times We Must Dream With Open Eyes
Nico Vascellari‘s flag In Dark Times We Must Dream With Open Eyes makes it all the way to Gozo as it flies outside Dorothea Space Gozo. Visit blitzvalletta.com to purchase your own flag for €40 and support @africanmediamalta @foodbanklifeline #bluedoorenglishmalta #maltamicrofinance. More flag locations around Valletta will be added soon. Join our initiative and fly the flag at your own location.
#nicovascellari #contemporaryart #malta #blitzvalletta @africanmediamalta @foodbanklifeline @nicovascellari @artscouncilmalta @vcamalta @code.lunga @saradolfiagostini
PLA(N)Tform @Ars Electronica
Our colleagues from RIXC presented PLA(N)T during Ars Electronica.
PLA(N)Tform is a virtual ‘organism’ in which digital and biological actors grow and evolve in ‘ecosystemic’ relations. It is a speculative experiment of ‘terrestrial co-existence’ transforming biological, techno-scientific and atmospheric processes into a space-time of ‘planthropocene’ – gardens for human-plant ‘involution’.
The PLA(N)Tform at Ars Electronica will evolve into a virtual garden connecting live video concert from the Forest Garden Greenhouse in Riga and Virtual BioSensing exhibition as well as ‘growing, sensing and making kin-ship’ performances in Karlsruhe.
PLA(N)Tform
The PLA(N)Tform is a virtual organism in which both natural and artificial actors grow and evolve together, in the darkness of an infinite space of potentialities. The PLA(N)Tform grows in Deleuzian and Guattarian “rhizomatic” proliferations while it is nourished by luminous seeds, each containing their own “naturally artificial” worlds. By juxtaposing the different realities in a heterogeneous plurality, the PLA(N)Tform is understood as a speculative experiment of Latour’s “terrestrial co-existence.” Epistemological and aesthetic practices, far removed from hierarchical mechanisms, merge into a space-time of planthropocene” – Natasha’s Myers envisioned gardens for plant-people “involution.”
The PLA(N)Tform at Ars Electronica will evolve into a virtual garden connecting the live video concert from the Forest Garden Greenhouse in Riga and Virtual BioSensing exhibition in Karlsruhe, featuring the artworks that eco-systematically explore the forests and underwater world creating Reversed gardens, Forest stories and Floating woodlands; grow telegraph-plants and mimosa to explore devices for tracking and visualizing the plant-movement; use photogrammetry to create virtual Nature nostalgia environments in the times of isolation; make sensing experiments to explore human-plant kin-ship; investigate herbal tea making traditions, and engage in Home-Sick Farming activities that manifest in plant-growing and sharing, and cooking performances.
Out of Time – Exhibition of recent work by Vince Briffa
The exhibition Out of Time presents a collection of works on paper and mixed-media paintings selected from the last ten years of the artist’s studio production, including work produced during the Covid-19 lockdown.The exhibition centres on the artist’s ongoing concern of our relationship with time and what it means for a human being to exist temporally in the stretch that we call our lifetime.The works exhibited are selected from the following bodies of work:The Terrain Vague Series (2010-2011): The concern with attempting to locate and to define the undetermined divide between two opposing forms. In landscape theory, the concept of terrain vague, wasteland or ambiguous space, refers to the undescribed territory that separates the city from nature. The artist used this termas metaphor for our relationship with our surroundings.Two works entitled “Between Ash and Dust” are shown from this collection. The works in charcoal and mixed media on wood, speak of implausible distances and detached spaces splitting up such evasive elements as smoke and sky. They are as much about the process of drawing/painting as they are about the current war imagery of destruction taken from tabloids or television. These metaphoric memorials sway unclearly between human intervention and natural phenomena and embody an act of restitution through the same material they are made of (charcoal being fire’s residue), a destructive force embalmed through its very remains.The Lichtung Series (2019 – today): This ongoing series of works were inspired by Martin Heidegger’s term Lichtung as the “Clearing”, and makes reference to Heidegger’s quote: “In the midst of beings as a whole an open place occurs.There is a clearing, a lighting… Only this clearing grants and guarantees to us humans a passage to those beings that we ourselves are not, and access to the being that we ourselves are.”The artist uses this title to refer to a series of works that relate to the genre of the landscape,but plays with the philosopher’s definition in German, ‘eine Lichtung ist,’ literally meaning‘a clearing is,’ suggesting the kind of clearing one finds in the woods or the forest, where light seeps through the less dense parts of the branches precisely referring to the ‘lightened’ patch of the forest. The artist is, however, more interested in Heidegger’s use of ‘Lichtung ’in the sense of ‘shedding light’ on something, referring to our capacity to give meaning(in this case to landscape) through our own memory. The works therefore refer to the artist’s memory as the shedding light that creates these ‘could have been’ landscapes, a tribute to Simon Schama’s assertion in his book ‘Landscape and Memory’ that “Before it can ever bea repose for the sen ses, landscape is a work of the mind. Its scenery is built up as much fromstrata of memory as from layers of rock.”The Mounds, Canifantasma and Nell’Ombra della Torre Series (2018): These collections of works were created in Umbria, Italy during the artist’s residency at Civitella Ranieri castle in 2018. The works selected for the exhibition are a direct reaction to the experience of space and history on the artist.The ‘Mounds’ collection, are the more abstract and take their inspiration from landscape forms around the area. These works preceded and also fed the current ‘Lichtung’ series.The ‘Canifantasma’ and ‘Nell’ Ombra della Torre’ series were inspired by the history and architecture of the Civitella Castle in Umbria and the Ranieri family who were the original owners of the castle.The Swath Series (2020): The series which started during the COVID-19 outbreak is inspired by rituals of birth and death in historical and contemporary societies.The title ‘swath’ as the noun and ‘swathe’ as the verb reference the way we envelope both babies at birth and corpses in bags prior to burial.The series concerns the aesthetics of the clothing at the two extremes of the human lifespan(birth and death) and reflects the ‘thrown projection’ into this world (and its consequential abrupt truncation through death) in Heidegger’s ‘Being and Time’. The works, which show bodies wrapped in what seems like a cloth or a swathe of bandages, equally make reference to news images of Covid fatalities and to victims of a road accident or death at sea. These forms have a striking resemblance to the swathing of newly-born babies throughout history.
Also of interest: SPLEEN
ILUM @Eleventh International Conference on The Image
Adnan Hadzi presented ‘Immersive Laboratory University of Malta: Artistic Doctorate Visual Pedagogies’ at the Eleventh International Conference on the Image.
As communicative landscapes are increasingly driven by the visual, there is a demand to put ‘the image’ at the center of research practices and educational methodologies. In turn, there is a call for a focus on new approaches to making sense of location, use, and analysis of the image in pedagogical contexts. The 2020 special focus attempts to provoke thinking through the image by: encounters – the personal, social and inter-connectedness of experience to the viewer; place – the where and how of transmission, situatedness and reception; ecologies – appearing within the image, systems, cultures, and context; design – the nature of action in experience and interpretation, from the historical, contemporary, to imaging future worlds. What creative ecologies can be re-imagined in the shared practices of image makers and educators that leads to the development of critical thinking to transform visual experience?
Xarabank Malta TV
Times of Malta published a review of highlights of the 23 years long Xarabank TV show run: “The Friday after winning the 2008 general election, Lawrence Gonzi made a full appearance on Xarabank, analysing election results and surveys putting more of the PN’s electoral manifesto to the public.”
In the moments after being elected leader of the Labour Party, a Xarabank journalist asked Muscat whether he would be on Xarabank next Friday, to which he promptly replied, “yes, of course”.
Ahead of the 2013 general election, Muscat was also the subject of a popular day-in-the-life video which aired on Xarabank, introducing his wife Michelle and then infant twin daughters to the public at large.
Gonzi and Muscat frequently tousled on the program and in the run-up to the 2013 election, Xarabank dedicated a full episode to a leadership debate between the two.
On the former prime minister’s own suggestion, in 2002 the Xarabank team interviewed Dom Mintoff in an outside broadcast in his hometown of Cospicua.
The show also regularly tackled social issues, perhaps most prominently in the debate leading up to the referendum on divorce. The “yes or no” question was put to members of parliament, leading to loud and hot arguments between the camps.
Despite often facing criticism for its lack of nuance, Xarabank was also one of the first television programmes to feature the experiences of Maltese gay couples in 2008 and how some resorted to living overseas in order to get married.
Another highly viewed episode is Xarabank’s interview with Simon Bugeja, the only survivor of the Simshar shipwreck tragedy which claimed the lives of four people, including Bugeja’s father Karmenu and his 11-year-old son Theo. Bugeja captured the public’s sympathy on Xarabank as he tearfully recounted his son’s final moments reciting the rosary and the act of contrition as they became increasingly desperate and fearful that no rescue would come.
In 2012, one of Xarabank’s most highly viewed episodes was one dedicated to Carmen Camilleri, the sister of seven-year-old Valletta murder victim Twannie Camilleri. Twanny and Carmen’s parents, Ġiġa and Leli were convicted for the boy’s murder on the strength of then seven-year-old Carmen’s testimony.However, on her Xarabank appearance revisiting the scene of the crime, Carmen recanted her testimony and declared her parents innocent, a fact that served to incense the public as well as its insinuation that the killer was still at large.
Xarabank also famously entertained its own version of the satanic panic, dedicating a number of episodes to the discussion of satanism, giving airtime to exorcists and people who claimed to have had a close brush with the occult.
The programme also found ways to stroke controversy in unconventional ways, with its interviews on sex and relationships often going viral, such as the time a counsellor explained that research indicated Maltese people watched more pornography during general elections.
Xarabank was always in touch with its philanthropic side, helping bring to prominence the story of Bjorn Formosa, who spearheaded activism for sufferers of ALS in Malta and helped raise hundreds of thousands of euros for care homes dedicated to people suffering from ALS.
Xarabank Highlights written by Jessica Arena (Times of Malta)
Banksy funded migrant rescue boat launches in the Mediterranean
The Louise Michel is a former French Navy boat we’ve customised to perform search and rescue. She is as agile as she is pink. Measuring 30 meters in length and capable of over 28 knots, she was bought with proceeds from the sale of Banksy artwork – who then decorated her with a fire extinguisher. She is captained and crewed by a team of rescue professionals drawn from across Europe. She runs on a flat hierarchy and a vegan diet.
LONDON — Street artist Banksy has released a video with a strong political message explaining why he became involved in a search-and-rescue ship helping migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.“Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med,” the artist wrote in captions accompanying the video, which was posted to his Instagram account Saturday. “It’s a French Navy vessel we converted into a lifeboat.”“Because EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from ’non-Europeans’,” the subversive artist continued. “All Black Lives Matter.”The video featured footage of migrants at sea and clips of the vessel, called the MV Louise Michel, which is painted bright pink and features a mural depicting a young girl holding on to a heart-shaped safety float.The Louise Michel crew has said it is sponsored by Banksy, whose real name remains a mystery. Details of his financial involvement were not available.The crew has in recent days reported picking up several groups of migrants in the central Mediterranean in what appeared to be its maiden rescue voyage.
Associated PressHide CaptionBanksy spray-paints London train with COVID-19 messageBanksy’s back, this time with a message about COVID-19.Buzz60LONDON — Street artist Banksy has released a video with a strong political message explaining why he became involved in a search-and-rescue ship helping migrants in the Mediterranean Sea.“Like most people who make it in the art world, I bought a yacht to cruise the Med,” the artist wrote in captions accompanying the video, which was posted to his Instagram account Saturday. “It’s a French Navy vessel we converted into a lifeboat.”“Because EU authorities deliberately ignore distress calls from ’non-Europeans’,” the subversive artist continued. “All Black Lives Matter.”The video featured footage of migrants at sea and clips of the vessel, called the MV Louise Michel, which is painted bright pink and features a mural depicting a young girl holding on to a heart-shaped safety float.The Louise Michel crew has said it is sponsored by Banksy, whose real name remains a mystery. Details of his financial involvement were not available.The crew has in recent days reported picking up several groups of migrants in the central Mediterranean in what appeared to be its maiden rescue voyage.In a series of tweets over the past few days, the ship’s crew has strongly criticized the European Union over its migration policy. It said it contacted both Italian and Maltese coast guards seeking a port to disembark migrants, but received no response.The tone of the tweets has grown more urgent in the past 24 hours after the crew reported that the numbers of migrants on board were getting too high, that the ship was essentially stranded and that the crew was seeking a port to disembark the passengers. It reported women and children were among the dozens on board and in an adjacent dinghy, as well as the corpse of a migrant.“We need immediate assistance,” the crew tweeted via its @MVLouiseMichel handle on Saturday. “We are safeguarding 219 people with a crew of 10. Act #EU now!”In an email Saturday, the crew said the vessel was now heading to Sicily to seek shelter for the migrants.Another humanitarian aid group ship, the Mare Jonio, said Saturday it was leaving the Sicilian port of Augusta to come to the Louise Michel’s aid. The Mare Jonio, which has been active in the Mediterranean for years, said it was moving up its scheduled departure by 48 hours to help the Louise Michel out.