Gernot Wieland.

* 1968 in Horn, AUT

lebt und arbeitet in Berlin and Brantevik, SWE


1990-96 Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Wien, AUT
1995-97 Universität der Künste, Berlin
Seit 2011 Lehrazftrag an der UdK - Universität der Künste, Berlin, GER

 

 

Ausstellungen [Auswahl]:

2012 I follow memories, Image Movement, Berlin, GER
2011 Il pensiero autobiografico, Kaleidoscope Space, Mailand, ITA
Notre vallée, Musée du chateau des ducs de Wurtemberg, Montbéliard, FRA
2009 Portrait of Karl Marx as a young god, ABC_ DEF, Art Berlin Contemporary, Akademie der Künste, Berlin, GER
You do not leave traces of your presence, just of your acts, Galerie Andreas Huber, Wien, AUT
2008 Thomas K. Lang Gallery, Webster University, Wien, AUT

Things that leave me sleepless

Date: 2012
Length: 20:46 min.
Format: 4:3
Specifications: Colour, Sound, Single Channel
Courtesy the artist

 

 

Das Video handelt von der Geschichte der US-amerikanischen (Ess)kultur, Religiosität, einer besten Freundschaft und der Produktionsstätte von Helden. Nach Art gegenwärtiger Lecture Performances stellt Gernot Wieland mit seinem Video „Things that leave me sleepless“ teils fiktive und teils erlebte Ereignisse und Erfahrungen mit der amerikanischen und österreichischen Lebenswelt vor. Der Redner sitzt an einem Pult auf dem sich ein Mikrofon, ein Glas Wasser und ein Laptop befinden. Im Hintergrund zeigt er eine Powerpoint-Präsentation mit Bildern, die seine in Englisch gehaltene Rede illustrieren. In der Präsentation werden Personen, Skizzen Wielands und bunte Wolken einer Geburtstagseinladung gezeigt. Die zwei Hauptstränge seiner Erzählung bilden der Schüleraustausch in die USA und die Freundschaft zu seinem besten Freund Christian; diese werden verknüpft mit wissenschaftlichen Ansätzen der Psychoanalyse (Freud, Lacan), der Kunstgeschichte und -theorie (White Cube, Tatlin) und kulturhistorischen Topoi (Mythos Amerika). Diese Mischung von persönlich-biographischen Erlebnissen mit wissenschaftlich verbrämtem Allgemeinwissen erzeugt eine amüsante Gegenüberstellung von kulturellen Stereotypen und dem Sprachduktus einer Wissenschaftlichkeit, die hier das Thema modernen Heldentums in den USA als inhaltlichen Fokus setzt. Ob es sich um eine Persiflage des heute oftmals theorielastigen Künstlerdaseins handelt oder um eine poetisch-performative Kunstdarbietung, bleibt offen.

Sabine Halver

 

 

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?

 

I believe for presenting my work there is not a “one-size“ context, but there are various methods of showing it. I am always intrigued by how impressive it can be to see your own work contextualised by
a form, an idea. Not so much in how the form “speaks“ to the work, or how they interact, but how the work responds to a form and how my work constructs itself while it is narrating. In most of my films I include many different layers of narration and layers of references like objects, fotos, drawings or drawings I made when I was a child. They can be regarded as collaborators to me, and I think of the form of presentation as a collaboration as well.

 

 

► 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?

 

In “Things that leave me sleepless“, which will be presented at VIDEONALE.14, I have written a lecture performance film, in which I combine plotlines about the desire of a restart as well as the relevance of heros. In general I create through memories, historical reports, personal recollections and fictions my own kind of “scientific” approach, my own kind of a story, always on the verge of being absurd and
tragic-comical. I work with language and images. But I need the images to narrate the absurdity, because language is too exclusive and tends to abolish the real absurdity. I think my work also expresses desire and adresses to an audience. The emotions of the audience are important, they function like an
external part of the work. I am interested in order and its invisible psychological structures, in individuals, who seem driven by a constant obsession. Their role is almost as external as the audience, since they seem to “speak“ in the name of someone else. They serve as a crucial point, or like that fix
point needed in order to move something, to put time out of joint. If you can make things turn around such an awkward character, connect him to different powerpositions, you can gain a new perspective on those positions, make unexpected layers show up, make the position function as a mirror.

 

 

► 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 don´t work exclusively with video, and I do not think so much of media - I'm into storytelling, I love literature and in my mind pictures, drawings, diagramms or objects can be literary. Then there is the question of how to narrate those stories, and therefore I use film. Or more: I don´t use film, I use the camera to write and to document.

 

 

► 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 would of course be interested in which feelings my film triggered and if they liked that feeling and how they respond to that feeling. But then, I would be interested if they tell me the truth (laughs), or more, if they know that they tell the truth, if they are aware of their truth. You know, truth is partial and carries a lot of layers in itself. And that remindes me of the sequence of Werner Herzogs film “Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle“ about Kaspar Hauser, when he is asked to find out the truth. Therefore my question would probably be: “Are you a frog?“ (Laughs.)

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