4+4 dny v pohybu: Erik Olofsen
Public Figures (video art)
Objekt bývalého ÚLUV (Ústředí lidové umělecké výroby)
Národní 36, Praha 1
15. – 24. října 2010
Instalace Public Figures byla natočena digitální kamerou z metra přijíždějícího do stanice. Výsledkem je nekonečný záběr na osoby stojících na nástupišti. Poklidný pohyb kamery a nehybnost portrétovaných osob dává prostor pro hypnotický řetězec myšlenek a asociací. Nástupiště připomíná jeviště, kde se každodenní malá gesta a rutinní pohyby osob přemění v představení. Erik Olofsen je umělec žijící a pracující v Holandsku.
www.ctyridny.cz
www.erikolofsen.com
4+4 days in motion: Erik Olofsen
Public Figures (video art)
ÚLUV building
Národní st. 36, Prague 1
15 October – 24 October 2010
Erik Olofsen´s video installation Public Figures was shot from a moving metro car while entering the station, using a digital high-speed camera. The result is an endless shot of people on a subway platform passing by in slow motion. The tranquil movement of the camera and stillness of the people portrayed, give room for a hypnotic chain of thoughts and associations. The platform seems to have transformed into a stage where everyday people's small gestures and simple routines turn into a performance. Erik Olofsen is a visual artist living and working in The Netherlands.
Public Figures / Text by Polina Stroganova, Kasseler Documentarfilm unde Videofest
The platform of a subway station is turned into a stage uniting public and private matters. The public space, which we perceive as a hectic, vibrant and noisy screen, is quiesced and suddenly we can perceive minimal gestures and intimate moments, which are normally not visible to the human eye.
By means of a high speed camera and the use of slow motion Olofsen documents the impression of an arriving train in a subway station: portrayals, relations, reactions.
An image which usually passes by in the blink of an eye, here becomes a tableau vivant and provides a detailed analysis of interpersonal relationships, their facial expressions. It enables us to receive a very intimate impression of which the protagonists are unaware. Every day life becomes a theatre play: Those who are waiting become actors, we have the feeling we are part of a theatre production.
What is it that arouses this feeling of theatricality? Maybe it is the clash of movement and standstill. The moving camera films the more or less frozen characters. By taking a closer look we realize minimal movements, though: The figures are sculptures and they aren’t. Maybe it is the extended time which also creates a different spatial perception, a kind of three-dimensionality, which is normally not part of the medium video. It seems like the figures intersect the room and thereby give it some sort of depth.
Documentation and fiction can hardly be separated in this work. On the one hand we are aware of the fact that this scenario is a fragment of every day life. Still, it holds a surreal moment, which is created through medial representation and alienation. The platform becomes a stage and those waiting become involuntary actors. However, it is the medial apparatus which allows us this kind of private insight. Maybe the knowledge about that is the reason why this work develops an eerie moment?