On Location
OpenEndedGroup und Jaroslaw Kapuscinski
Fri, May 17, 2013 8 pm CEST, Concert
Both “United”, by composer Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, as well as the most recent works of the award-winning trio of the OpenEndedGroup with Marc Downie, Shelley Eshkar and Paul Kaiser are presented.
They are considered pioneers in the field of digital art and work in the most diverse genres and media, such as dance (collaboration, among others, with Merce Cunningham), music, installation, film and art in public spaces (among others “Enlightenment and Breath”, Lincoln Center, 2006/2007). The work of OpenEndedGroup frequently contains three trademark-elements: non-photo-realistic 3D rendering, the integration of bodily movements through motion capture, and the creation of an autonomous independent existence of each of the works by artificial intelligence technology.
The connecting element between the three shown films is the depiction of fragmented, artificial landscapes symbolizing suppression and the ephemeral.
The point of departure of the most recent composition “United” (10:00; 2013), by Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, is the view out of a window at Narita airport in Tokyo on November 9, 2011 between 3.31 p.m. and 3.40 p.m. In order to enhance the differentiated perception of the complexity of everyday situations, the composer transposes the visual in a multi-channel, electronic composition. Kapuscinski invites the public to experience the nebulous-arbitrary coordination of movement in the world by which the enhanced perception of ephemeral moments is transferred, by way of composition, to a kind of timeless context. To this end, the composer users recordings of single musicians from the gagaku ensemble “Reigakusha”, especially prepared for “United”.
“plant” is a kind of virtual memory of the long-since disused Packard Plant factory in Detroit, one of the largest industrial ruins in the United States of America. The work itself is comprised of a spatial arrangement of several thousands of photographs of the area. The photographs, arranged as »point-clouds«, create an uncanny, unrealistic atmosphere – the snapshots appear like ghosts. A virtual camera moves through the huge area and films both the past (factory floors, abandoned elevators, etc.) as well as current life on the terrain (graffiti, birds, insects, etc.).
Waves (2012)
“Waves” invokes the faded present of the former »English Riviera«. Projected as if from a phantom video-beamer, slow-motion camera-tracking shots produce blurred and lurid picture postcard views of the English coastal town of Paignton. Recurring white crests of the ocean inspire impressions of a dream landscape, which appears not to fit into our times.
All Sides of the Road (2012)
From extremely varied perspectives, the peculiar landscape of a short section of a run-down highway in Iowa is presented in “All Sides of the Road”. An improvised 3D camera mounted on the passenger seat of a moving vehicle captures the roadside with its plants. The associatively rich and rapid pictorial drive points to both the reality of the decrepit infrastructure, as well as to the ephemeral dream of the colonization of America. The film was produced entirely digitally, and thus also represents a commentary on the aesthetics of the important road movies.
They are considered pioneers in the field of digital art and work in the most diverse genres and media, such as dance (collaboration, among others, with Merce Cunningham), music, installation, film and art in public spaces (among others “Enlightenment and Breath”, Lincoln Center, 2006/2007). The work of OpenEndedGroup frequently contains three trademark-elements: non-photo-realistic 3D rendering, the integration of bodily movements through motion capture, and the creation of an autonomous independent existence of each of the works by artificial intelligence technology.
The connecting element between the three shown films is the depiction of fragmented, artificial landscapes symbolizing suppression and the ephemeral.
The point of departure of the most recent composition “United” (10:00; 2013), by Jaroslaw Kapuscinski, is the view out of a window at Narita airport in Tokyo on November 9, 2011 between 3.31 p.m. and 3.40 p.m. In order to enhance the differentiated perception of the complexity of everyday situations, the composer transposes the visual in a multi-channel, electronic composition. Kapuscinski invites the public to experience the nebulous-arbitrary coordination of movement in the world by which the enhanced perception of ephemeral moments is transferred, by way of composition, to a kind of timeless context. To this end, the composer users recordings of single musicians from the gagaku ensemble “Reigakusha”, especially prepared for “United”.
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski is an intermedia artist, composer and pianist, whose work has been internationally shown and performed, among others, at the MoMA New York, at the ZKM | Karlsruhe, at the Museum of Modern Art, Palais de Tokyo and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. He has won numerous prizes, among others at the UNESCO Film sur l'Art festival in Paris (1992), the VideoArt Festival Locarno (1992, 1993) and at the Festival of New Cinema and New Media in Montréal (2001). Kapuscinski studied piano and composition at the Chopin Academy of Music in Warsaw before shifting his artistic creativity to the sphere of multimedia (among others residencies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada (1988) and at the University of California, San Diego (1997)). He presently holds a post as assistant professor of Composition at Stanford University, USA, and directs the Intermedia Performance Lab there.Program
Music
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski: United (10:00), 2013Music and Film
Jaroslaw Kapuscinski and OpenEndedGroup: Knight's Rest (5:00), 2012-2013Films by OpenEndedGroup
plant (2011)“plant” is a kind of virtual memory of the long-since disused Packard Plant factory in Detroit, one of the largest industrial ruins in the United States of America. The work itself is comprised of a spatial arrangement of several thousands of photographs of the area. The photographs, arranged as »point-clouds«, create an uncanny, unrealistic atmosphere – the snapshots appear like ghosts. A virtual camera moves through the huge area and films both the past (factory floors, abandoned elevators, etc.) as well as current life on the terrain (graffiti, birds, insects, etc.).
Waves (2012)
“Waves” invokes the faded present of the former »English Riviera«. Projected as if from a phantom video-beamer, slow-motion camera-tracking shots produce blurred and lurid picture postcard views of the English coastal town of Paignton. Recurring white crests of the ocean inspire impressions of a dream landscape, which appears not to fit into our times.
All Sides of the Road (2012)
From extremely varied perspectives, the peculiar landscape of a short section of a run-down highway in Iowa is presented in “All Sides of the Road”. An improvised 3D camera mounted on the passenger seat of a moving vehicle captures the roadside with its plants. The associatively rich and rapid pictorial drive points to both the reality of the decrepit infrastructure, as well as to the ephemeral dream of the colonization of America. The film was produced entirely digitally, and thus also represents a commentary on the aesthetics of the important road movies.
- Organization / Institution
- ZKM