ReMap4

QBox Gallery, Athens

September 8 – 30, 2013, solo exhibition

Press release by Daphne Tsaoussis:

On the occasion of ReMap4 BENTEN CLAY meets 2monochannels; a team from Berlin and a team from Athens. Their collaboration generated two projects designed to engage the viewer in a series of questions concerning the function of perception. Both works challenge the state of unawareness set against one of consumption and indulgence.  

The work entitled 33 bpm comments on a fact. The other, entitled fix Hellas translates an image.

In 33 bpm the artists respond to the strawberry fields incident in Manolada to comment on the pressing immigration issue in Europe. They present an audiovisual installation through which the -seemingly- idyllic, pop image is juxtaposed with our knowledge of the underlying barbarity. A story, an image and a sound affect our perception in an attempt to emphasize a disturbing condition. Why do we embellish? What effect does it have?

fix Hellas is an ephemeral, interactive installation consisting of Fix beer cans where the translation of the logo rearticulates the meaning of the image. The visitors -their movement and interference on the site- become the necessary means to uncover the work. In effect, fix Hellas is an allusion, a whisper.

In 33 bpm the incident of the attack on immigrant workers is implied so as to impel the visitor towards a new way of seeing, which reflects further assumed social conditions that have been idealized/embellished. However, in fix Hellas an image is shown in its given form (beer cans) and thenceforth reinterpreted in another context (translation). Accordingly, matter translates into concept and vice versa.

33 bpm and fix Hellas deconstruct apparent facades using the most primeval, bodily needs: food and drink. By elevating them into social practice beyond their basic personalized character, they signal a driving force for reflection. What happens when knowledge and sense of pleasure clash?

Both installations use the cognitive aspects of the act of seeing to suggest the slippery relationship between reality, representation and perception. It is through this tension between ethics and aesthetics that the works challenge our experience.

Curator: Daphne Tsaoussis

Gallery: www.qbox.gr

Collaboration: www.2monochannels.com

Festival: remapkm.org/4/