Agnes Meyer-Brandis.

The Moon Goose Colony

Date: 2011
Lenght: 20:56 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Colour, Sound, Single Channel
Courtesy the artist

“THE MOON GOOSE ANALOGUE: Lunar Migration Bird Facility”
by Agnes Meyer-Brandis was commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and FACT, in partnership with Pollinaria.
„The Moon Goose Colony, P1“ is a Pollinaria project by Agnes Meyer-Brandis.
 

Existiert die Spezies der Mond-Gänse? Eine spezifische Entengattung, die als einzige die Fähigkeit besitzt, zum Mond zu fliegen? Agnes Meyer-Brandis beobachtet die Aufzucht einer Generation Mondgänse von dem Schlüpfen aus dem Ei bis zu ihrer Flugtauglichkeit. Dabei nimmt sie den Wortlaut eines 1603 verfassten, fiktiven Romans von Francis Gordon wörtlich, der über Gänse berichtet, die zum Mond fliegen können. Die Entwicklung der Gänse wird in „The Moon Goose Colony“ in achtundzwanzig Kapiteln methodisch dokumentiert. Die Rolle der Entenmutter übernehmend, lehrt die Künstlerin den Gänsekindern nicht nur die Grundlagen des Lebens, sondern bildet diese, sich selbst in einen Raumanzug kleidend, zu zukünftigen Astronauten aus. Die Bildsequenzen werden von einer männlichen Stimme begleitet, die anhand des neuzeitlichen Textes und in wissenschaftlichem Jargon das reale Geschehen kommentiert. Die Ernsthaftigkeit der Erzählstimme und der ihre Gänse liebevoll erziehenden jungen Wissenschaftlerin wird konterkariert durch die Skurrilität der Aufnahmen, die bestimmt sind durch das Zusammenspiel von Mensch und Tier, semi-wissenschaftlichen Aufzeichnungen sowie dem Einsatz von Instrumenten aus der Raumfahrt. Konsequent unterläuft der Bildinhalt damit immer wieder das Ansinnen, eine Situation zu schaffen, die einer wissenschaftlichen Versuchsanordnung würdig wäre.

Nihan Aydin

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?

Exhibition context - its more timeless - the visitor can come and go, get lost in the video or not, decide by themself how long they want to watch the video the video itself can also be perceived as an image - a moving image.

► 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 art works are investigating our constructions of reality - what and how we form our world and in the end - what do we belief - an artistic research on the quest for a degree of reality within constructions.

► 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 work with many different media and materials, depending on each project and its ideas and necessities, one main material is video as i use it to document experiments, a witness, a tool and method to collect sense data and explore remote realities, such as the iceberg-probe, a scientific and
artistic tool in the same time, to gather research material, express images and visions, to tell stories, ... video has many many possibilities and its a timebased medium,. it can be purely visual but also very informative in the same time, ... it is a tool for me as well as an expression and reality of its own. For example the video "Moon Goose Colony", which will be presented at the VIDEONALE.14 is part of large project and longterm experiment and you can get an impression under www.ffur.de/mga

► 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?

Do you have a big meadow and would you like to adopt and take care for some moon geese?
 

-----

“THE MOON GOOSE ANALOGUE: Lunar Migration Bird Facility”
by Agnes Meyer-Brandis was commissioned by The Arts Catalyst and FACT, in partnership with Pollinaria.
„The Moon Goose Colony, P1“ is a Pollinaria project by Agnes Meyer-Brandis.