Nicolas Bourriaud
THREADS: A FANTASMAGORIA ABOUT DISTANCE
“Telegraph and telephone destroy the cosmos. Mythical and symbolic thinking strive to form spiritual bonds between humanity and the surrounding world, shaping distance into the space required for devotion and reflection: the distance undone by the instantaneous electric connection.” Aby Warburg
Fantasmagory, both as a technique and an ideology of the image, could be the forgotten historical model for today’s art practices: the way artists embroider stories in a mixture of fictions and social reality, inhabiting the interstices between the real, the illusion, the image and its interpretations, seems to connect to the ambitions of the 18th century’s ‘fantasmagorists’ — their will to include the viewer into total environments that recall our installations, the way they combined scientific ambitions, esoteric knowledge and spectacular practice.
Already at the end of the eighteenth century, Philidor and Robertson, the first ‘fantasmagores’, share some traits with contemporary artists: between enlightment and entertainment, science and magic, painting and theatre, prestidigitation and political issues (Robespierre and Danton were among the revolutionary figures invocated by Robertson in his spectacles), they appear as prototypes for the contemporary artist… Contemporary to the fantasmagories was the invention of telegraphy (from the greek word tele, far and graphein, write), the long-distance transmission of written messages without physical transport of letters. A semaphore network was invented by Claude Chappe in France, which operated from 1792 through 1846; an electrical telegraph was independently developed in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse.
Threads’ ambitions are both to approach the form of fantasmagoria and to address the way today’s artists include the notion of distance in their works: in a globalized and digitalized world, how does art deal with transportation, real time communication? What is the current shape of the presence/absence dialectics? How do artists present absent realities? “Move bits, not atoms”, said the web activist Nicholas Negroponte in the 1990s.
As a metaphor, Threads also stresses the parallels between today’s art and the spectacle of fantasmagory, focusing on the similarities with this proto-movie theatre both in terms of techniques and intellectual issues, and leads the way to another possible history of art, where feature films and installations would share a common ancestor.
By doing so, it alludes to the spectral as an emerging mode of visualisation anchored in internet culture: furtive apparitions, gaseous, infra-thin or filigree-like images, pseudo-telepathy, ventriloquy or magnetic phenomena are part of a new culture of the visible aiming to reconcile science and poetry, technology and image analysis, but in a production context dominated by digital tools.
Based on this link between science, poetry and spiritualism, Threads is an exhibition about art as a system that connects itself to a different time and/or space. The artwork as a telegraphic device, entering into contact with something happening somewhere else, in another realm, world, place or times…
Artists of the exhibition: Saâdane Afif, Arnas Anskaitis, Hicham Berrada, Walead Beshty, Roberto Cabot, Attila Csorgo, Bronė Sofija Gideikaitė, Liam Gillick, Lothar Hempel, Carsten Höller, Katja Novitskova, Pakui Hardware (Černiauskaite Neringa & Ugnius Gelguda), Katie Paterson, Amalia Ulman, Julijonas Urbonas, Kelley Walker, Darius Žiūra.
Exhibition information:
Venue: Central Post Office
Address: Kaunas Laisvės a. 102, Kaunas LT 44001 (II – VI levels).
Working hours: II – VII 11 am – 7 pm.
The exhibition lasts until Dec. 31, 2015.
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Public opening. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Public Opening. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Public opening. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Public opening. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Roberto Cabot, Kaunas Aleph, 2015. Livestream video projection, sound. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Kelley Walker. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Kelley Walker. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Kelley Walker. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Lothar Hempel. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Lothar Hempel, Baccha Paranoika, 2009. Courtesy of Anton Kern Gallery (New York). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Lothar Hempel, Slowdance, 2015. Courtesy of Stuart Shave / Modern Art (Londonas). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Lothar Hempel, Acid and Iron, 2011. Courtesy of Anton Kern Gallery (New York). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katja Novitskova, Pattern of Activation (On Mars ), 2014. Courtesy of Alexander Köser (Cologne). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katja Novitskova, Pattern of Activation (On Mars ), 2014. Courtesy of Alexander Köser (Cologne). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katja Novitskova, Pattern of Activation (On Mars ), 2014. Courtesy of Alexander Köser (Cologne). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Julijonas Urbonas, Hesitating Doors, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas.
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Bronė Sofija Gideikaitė, The Trip, 2013 – 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Bronė Sofija Gideikaitė, The Trip, 2013 – 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Roberto Cabot, Ventilation, 2008. Courtesy of “Galerie Brigitte Schenk” and the artist. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Pakui Hardware, Crave that Mineral, 2015. Photo: Pakui Hardware
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Pakui Hardware, Crave that Mineral, 2015. Photo: Pakui Hardware
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Pakui Hardware, Shapeshifter, Heartbreaker, 2014. Photo: Pakui Hardware
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Pakui Hardware, Shapeshifter, Heartbreaker, 2014. Photo: Pakui Hardware
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Katie Paterson, Time Pieces (Solar System), 2014. Courtesy of Parafin Gallery and the artist. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katie Paterson, Dying Star Letters, 2011. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katie Paterson, Dying Star Letters, 2011. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katie Paterson, The Candle (From Earth into the Black Hole), 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katie Paterson, The Candle (From Earth into the Black Hole), 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Walead Beshty
16-inch Copper (Fedex® Kraft Box ©2005 FEDEX 330504 10/05 SSCC), International Priority, Los Angeles-Bruxelles trk#861718438308, August 31 – September 2, 2011, International Priority, Bruxelles-Paris trk#876303869097, January23 – January24, 2013, International Priority, Paris-Bruxelles trk#899244571053, May14 – May15, 2013, International Priority, Bruxelles-Kaunas trk#806093127029, August 25 – August 28, 2015
2011
Polished copper and accrued FedEx shipping labels
16 x 16 x 16 in (40.6 x 40.6 x 40.6 cm)
Wbes080
Courtesy of Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels, Belgium. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Walead Beshty
Copper (FedEx® Kraft Box ©2005 FEDEX 157872 REV 10/05 SSCC), International Priority, Los Angeles-Geneva, trk#860603386371, March 9, 2011 – March 14, 2011, International Priority, Geneva-Kaunas, trk#803581825107, September 2, 2015 – September 8, 2015
Polished copper, accrued FedEx shipping and tracking labels
12 x 20 x 20 inches (30.5 x 50.8 x 50.8 cm)
WB 162
Courtesy of Stéphane Ribordy. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Roberto Cabot, Ventilation, 2008. Courtesy of “Galerie Brigitte Schenk” and the artist. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Hicham Berrada and Laurent Durupt live performance. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Hicham Berrada and Laurent Durupt live performance. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Hicham Berrada, Présage, 2007-2015. Courtesy of “kamel mennour gallery” and the artist. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Hicham Berrada, Présage, 2007-2015. Courtesy of “kamel mennour gallery” and the artist. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Arnas Anskaitis, Traveller, 2014-2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Arnas Anskaitis, Traveller, 2014-2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Katja Novitskova, Pattern of Activation (Rhinos), 2014. Courtesy of Lewben Art Foundation, Kraupa – Tuskany Zeidler and the artist. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Liam Gillick, Inside now, we walk into a room with Coca-Cola coloured walls, 1998. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Liam Gillick, Inside now, we walk into a room with Coca-Cola coloured walls, 1998. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Lothar Hempel, Mäusebunker, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Attila Csörgő, Clockwork, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Attila Csörgő, Dice Tectonics, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Attila Csörgő, Dice Tectonics, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Amalia Ulman, Forever&Always, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Saâdane Afif, Threads: A Fantasmagoria about Distance (The Rehearsal), performed by Candee Train Collective, 2015. Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Darius Žiūra, Monument for Utopia, 2015. With participation of Viacheslav Kovalenko (St. Petersburg) and S (Dublin). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
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Darius Žiūra, Monument for Utopia, 2015. With participation of Viacheslav Kovalenko (St. Petersburg) and S (Dublin). Photo: Remis Ščerbauskas
Comment
Ambon Pereira
Replied on: 11-04-2015, 00:45
doubt very much that this comment will post, as i don’t see comments posted anywhere, which is almost/perhaps a charming irony in a show about presence-and-absence-in-distance; i myself am distant, having known this exhibit only in 8-bit postcards, i mean .gifs, i mean html, i mean google auto-translate of the original lith., i mean browsing, surmising, shrugging, day-dreaming. what does it mean to be present or absent in a medium? am presently seated beside a fountain by louis kahn, with a statue by bourdelle 1909 called penelope, the wily unweaver, greek-approximate to schezerade. i see weaving is a theme of sorts, graphical representations of data. counting tree rings. (again, this message will presumably not be posted, and therefore amounts to another exercise in absence). i read and dream of kaunas, sometimes lovely, sometimes horrifying. which is to say like any other history, except that it belongs, principally, to yourselves– but what does it mean to belong to yourself on the web, dissolving, surveilled, mined, summarized and abbreviated and mistranslated? i dream of that first telegraph, presumably by way of germany from london with russia and persia and india as its objective. copper and gutta percha and electrons, the carrington event. trivia, unrelated except in a mind, a mined mind. good luck to lithuania, good luck art and the people