Mikhail Karikis & Uriel Orlow.

Mikhail Karikis  * in Greece

lives and works in London, GBR

 

Uriel Orlow * in Zurich, CH

lives and works in London, GBR

 

Exhibitions [Selection]:

Mikhail Karikis
2012 The Deep of the Modern MANIFESTA 9, Genk, BE
Garden of Eden: Evil Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FRA
Mikhail Karikis: SeaWomen, The Wapping Project, London, GBR
2011 Speech Matters, Danish Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale, ITA
Performance Festival 3rd Thessaloniki Biennale, GRE

 

Uriel Orlow

2012 Time is a Place Centre Pasquart/Kunsthaus Biel, CH
Terrain Vague/Persistent Images ACAF Alexandria / Kunstforening, Oslo, NOR
The Deep of the Modern Manifesta 9, Genk, BE
2011 Chewing the Scenery 54th Venice Biennale/Swiss Pavilion, ITA
2010 Over the Counter, Kunsthalle Budapest, HU
 

 

Sound from Beneath

Date: 2010/11
Length: 06:42 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Colour, Sound, Single Channel
Courtesy the artists

 

 

A barren, rutted area spreads out under a grey sky. Right next to it fields of lush vegetation. What we see is Tilmanstone Colliery, a coalmine in East Kent, England. It was closed down in 1986 – and yet in this work it is filled by the sound of a mine in operation. The human voices in “Sounds from Beneath” call it back to life. They belong to the Snowdown Colliery Welfare Male Voice Choir, a local miners’ choir, standing there reproducing the way it sounded underground in the mine. The men are standing like a picket line, spread out over the plateau at regular intervals. The camera shots show the contrast between man and nature, detail and the whole, and interweave the derelict area and its previous use intensified by the acoustical analogy: the noise of machines which eat into the seams of coal, and shovels which scrape on the ground, occasionally accompanied by the distant singing of the miners. In this way, by means of picture and sound, different levels of time are tied together to an all-embracing experience of space. After the choir has left the area, the final sequence carries us into the present in fast-motion. Like a vision, a person is faded in, overloaded with colourful airbeds and inflatable swimming toys, seeming to look for some recreational activity in this colourless tract of land shaped by industry.

Ninja Elisa Felske
 

 

Interview with Mikhail Karikis:

 

► 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?

 

My work is interdisciplinary and as such, its form depends on its content. I am committed to the concepts and themes of my projects, as well as to my collaborators, and I allow for the concepts of the work to determine its final form. I'm not committed personally to a particular style, genre or presentation format. The project exhibited in Videonale 14 is an audio-visual installation, with sound being its driving force. It is common in my work that an auditory investigation provides the anchor, and gives birth to my projects. There is no narrative development in the project included in Videonale 14, and is thus suitable for an exhibition even when people walk in and out of the space, catching fragments. Visitors will be able to grasp the main concept irrespective of how long they see the work. This is not the case with all my projects. Some moving image and sound works unravel in longer periods of time, and their concepts develop in a more narrative way - such projects tend to be more suitable for cinema screenings where people sit and watch the way the work unfolds.

 

► 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?

 

My work stems from my long-standing investigation of the human voice as a sculptural material and a conceptual compass to explore human experience. A quest central to my projects has been the exploration of vocal sounds that are beyond language and its rules, and the meanings we attach to these ‘rebellious’, nonsense sounds we invent. I see this as an artistic, an ethical, a philosophical and a political investigation. Recent projects have focused on such sonic subcultures in the context of work, and in relation to professional identity, freedom of speech and community formation. My projects often lead to a deep engagement with marginal communities, and have taken me to remote sites in Britain, Italy, South Korea and elsewhere. In terms of the aesthetic nature of my work, it ranges from the theatrical to the ethnographic, and researches innovative relationships between sound, performance and the moving image, activating ruptures both in perceptual and ethical concerns.

 

► 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?

 

I see with my ears, and think through sound in relation to images. What I mean is that video is a way to contain, capture, document and explore my interests in auditory culture. I believe that a lot of art which takes the form of video, which is collected and curated as video is in fact no 'video work'. Curatorial practices and museums need to consider where the concepts and main concerns of an artist's project are. For example, a piece like "Boomerang" by Nancy Holt and Richard Serra, in which Holt is seen listening to her voice coming back to her with a slight delay, until her speech is completely deconstructed as a result of this aural experiment, is thought of as a video work. In my opinion, such taxonomy of this work emphasises the medium that captured and documented a distinctly aural concept, and it disregards the medium in which the idea of the work unravels. To give a more extreme example, calling "Boomerang" a video is like calling Joseph Boyce's performance "I Like America and America Like Me" a photographic series, just because it exists as and we find out about it through photographs. So to come back to your question, I don't think I make video art; I use video in my art work because it gives me the opportunity to explore my main interests in sound, performance and images.

 

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?

 

I think my work is able to raise questions and direct them to the visitors of the exhibitions in a more articulate manner than me - I hope they enjoy the exhibition.
 

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