Jasper van den Brink & Yasmijn Karhof.

Vessel

Date: 2012
Length: 21:00 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Colour, Sound, Three Channel
Courtesy the artists

Unexpectedly, “Vessel” begins not on a ship but with pictures of a man in a meadow. He starts to run and we can hear the sound of branches breaking. Suddenly an orange falls from a tree, rolls over the ground, and the man begins to follow it through the wood. When the orange rolls over a gleaming black floor, the scene changes to on board a ship. The man investigates various parts of the abandoned ship: the deck, a lifeboat and the hull. Finally, in the engine room, the orange appears once again. The man begins to peel the orange, but when he throws the peel away it lands not on the deck of the ship but on the floor of the wood, leading us back to the starting place. The loop begins again. “Vessel” was conceived as a three-channel production. The different camera settings make it possible to observe the individual scenes from various points of view. A panorama of individual pictures arises, although the arrangement of the pictures and the sound dubbing counteract a linear sequence of events.

Carola Schmitt

Interview:

► 1. Your work has been chosen among over 2000 festival entries to participate in VIDEONALE.14. In which context do you prefer to present your work, festival/cinema context or exhibition? And what kind of difference does the respective mode of presentation mean for you / your work?

Most often our work is shown in an exhibition space context. This offers the possibility to create an own viewing format, one that suits the work and the underlying concept. The way our work is presented is always precise; it has to fit like a hand in a glove. In our separate work and joined work we often challenge all of the visitors’ senses. We aim to engage the spectator both mentally and physically and intend to create an intensified experience of the tangible world. Vessel tells a story in purely visual imagery. The leading role is played by a ship. Vessel is a twenty-minute video loop that tells a circular story: The end leads to the beginning. Vessel is a mixture of fantasy and reality. The installation uses three projection screens to create a realistic, bodily experience. For example the images of an undulating horizon, which heaves so vigorously that it almost makes you seasick. On the other hand the projections sometimes presents the same subject or action from three different angles. These different impressions of the same situation are shown on multiple screens. In Vessel we investigate how we experience the perceptible world.

► 2. Art can be seen as a mirror that registers and reflects life or as a tool that transforms it. Is there a particular theme, concept or problem your art addresses the most?

Our aim in this work is to show the world the way we perceive it -as the sum of countless momentary sensations- and to depict a dynamic experience of the three-dimensional world.
But also we want to go further than this, than representing a three-dimensional subject in two-dimensional space. Seeing is not merely registering impressions but interpretation. We want to show the way our imagination participates in and mediates this complex process. In Vessel, the viewpoint shifts now and then from that of the protagonist, a man in his thirties, to that of the ship itself. Suddenly, in a surprising perspective, you see what the ship sees. As if the ship would have had eyes. In Vessel we want to address the power of things upon our behaviour and upon our perception of the world.

Art critic Anne Berk describes this in her review about Vessel: “Vessel plays with our imaginative powers and investigates the complexity of our relationship to ostensibly inanimate things.”
…
“People have always made artifacts to improve their chances of survival. An ape will use a stick to get hold of a banana, but humans go further than that. They shape materials into useful objects that help them satisfy their needs, proceeding from stone hand axes to earthenware bowls, then houses, cars and computers. The number of human artifacts has swollen to such proportions that it has created a new biotope, the urban jungle, within which we struggle to survive. Technical devices not only create new possibilities but also shape our behaviour. Are we still the master of things? Or do things dictate our lives? Writers, artists and scientists have shed light on our complex relation with things.” …
“In today’s technological society, scientists too are taking an increasing interest in the role of things. … Many of our implements serve as an extension of the human body. They amplify our powers and our reach, but they also make us dependant. We cannot get by without them, and we develop an emotional bond with the object. So it does not seem too absurd to propose that a ship can be a living being. Can this be the essence of Vessel?” In the most general sense, a vessel is any physical object which can contain or transport something. The title of our work does refer in the first instance to the Norwegian research ship on which we travelled the Barents Sea and which is both the location and the binding theme of our installation. But a vessel is also a metaphor: a container for our interpretations and a projection screen for our fantasies. The question that we propose is: could it be that we are not looking at the ship, but that the ship is looking at us?

► 3. In which way is the video medium an excellent possibility to express your intended subjects, especially in contrast to other media you use? Or do you work exclusively with video?

We both work with different media as well, depending on the subject matter of the intended work. Lately we work mostly with film and video to create installations. I guess because we used to work with mixed media our approach towards video is slightly different. We use film and video to investigate the way we experience reality, to enlarge, isolate and recreate this in installations that challenge all of the visitor’ senses. We aim to create an intense experience. Working with video and film installation enables us to create sculptors that lead the spectator through both space and time.

► 4. If you have the chance to ask the visitors of the VIDEONALE.14 exhibition questions about your own work, what would be your question?

What do you think about the role of objects in your life?