Please scroll down for program schedule -
Tea Mäkipää, Linda Franke, Laura Horelli & Anu Pennanen, Robert Mathy, Christiane Frey, Patrick Jambon, Ailsa Ferrier, Mari Keski-Korsu, Julia Prezewowsky, Morten Dysgaard, Sonya Schönberger, Sanni Priha, Henna & Elina Vainio.
The participating artists have connections to either Finland or Berlin, and their work deals with the phenomena of simultaneity in a variety of ways: the relativity of proximity and distance as well as the attempt to understand time and space in its cultural, social and political meaning. What does ‘contemporary’ mean today and what do simultaneous events in different urban contexts signify? Performances, installations, video and film are the predominant mediums of the exhibition, as simultaneity and the relationship between time and space are the inherent conditions of these mediums.
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Tea Mäkipää, who recently exhibited in Neue Heimat at the Berlinische Galerie, will premier her film My life as a Reindeer in Berlin. In Mäkipää’s film nature provides its own documentary: the reindeer, with camera attached, wanders through the forests and swamps of Finnish Lapland and gives an urban audience a chance to see life from a reindeer’s perspective.
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Patrick Jambon - Portable VoIP Karaoke, © 2008
Inspired by Berlin’s sausage streetvendors, who carry their grill equipment on their own bodies, Patrick Jambon will bring his portable karaoke machine to Helsinki and invite and motivate people to participate, to sing. The idea is to sing simultaneously through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) both in Berlin and Helsinki. The webcam will capture the lyrics on the screen in Helsinki, while the projector will displays these in Berlin; loudspeakers will allow the audience to hear the singers perform a duet, separated by thousands of miles.
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Linda Franke - He's not your father, he's your uncle, © 2008
The performance artist Linda Franke works in an unusually sensual way and construes a narrative which reveals her affinity to surrealist paintings and a fantastically bizarre world of film images. For The Time of Distance Linda will paint a picture of her performance before it takes place in Helsinki, and will use her memories of the painting as a script for the performance. The painting will be exhibited in Berlin and the performance will be web-streamed from Helsinki.
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For their sound collage Laura Horelli and Anu Pennanen have recorded several phone calls between themselves and citizens of Helsinki. The artists asked the receiver of each phone call to describe the scene outside their window, as well as their personal, professional or philosophical projections for the future. As FIELD’s visitors in Berlin and Maa-Tila's visitors in Helsinki gaze out of the gallery window, they will listen to impressions of another city; this work deals with individual perception and asks the question: what is global and what is local?
Laura Horelli & Anu Pennanen - Dreifachfenster / Kolminkertaiset ikkunat,
© 2008
The audio piece can be heard on YLE Yöradio, 562 Mhhz, 6-10.5. 2008 at 00.15 and on Offener Kanal Berlin 24.4 at 15.00
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Julia Prezewowsky's exaggerated speech podium is transformed into a platform for a week long repeated performance. In both Helsinki and Berlin a performance will take place at exactly the same time, during which urban myths, gossip and rumours will be publicly declared and authorised. The piece undertakes the absurd attempt to synchronise the two performances and certify the myths, as well as drawing attention to our desire for chronology and truth in these tales.
Julia Prezewowsky, Declarations - Monument for Nonsense © 2008
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In his video work Vibration (2007), the young multi-media artist Robert Mathy uses previously televised footage of a downhill ski-slalom in a unique manner. Taken from the television channel ORF, he superimposes each skier's downhill run on top of one another. The repeating camera positions show that the skiers zig-zag down the mountain virtually synchronously, and the bodies of the slaloming skiers dissolve into one mass. The noise of the skiers and the television commentary blur as they are overlaid, becoming one monotonous hissing noise without a definite relation to space or time.
Robert Mathy - Vibration, Videoinstallation, © 2007
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Morten Dysgaard - Spiral of gazes, © 2007
Morten Dysgaard’s films explore cultural identities and their various forms and systems of representation. Through a continuous questioning of the way the protagonists construct their individual identity, he forces the viewers to face their own judgements and preconceptions. Over and over again the plot consists of a turning point where protagonists and antagonist swap sides. Dysgaard’s new film Spiral of gazes (2008) looks at the tension arising between cultural roots and global life. Two phenomenon, which have always co-existed-the stereotype picture of the ‘Christian western world’ and the ‘Moslem middle east’ – are overcome. The medium film enables to bring what has felt very far intimately close and remove what has felt deceivingly close before.
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Sanni Priha - Mulholland Drive Marathon, © 2008
Over a period of nine days Sanni Priha will set up a research laboratory to investigate the possibilities to transfer our body/mind into a world of fiction film. The artist has developed an extensive film viewing method in which one is subjected to a film repeatedly for a significant amount of time. In this particular (pseudo-)scientific research, the test subject is exposed to the film Mulholland Drive by David Lynch. Is it possible for one to exists in two places, the “real” and the fictive one at the same time? With a conscious mind, can we split it, the mind, as well as our body into two, in order to reach another world? The experiment will be live streamed from Hope and Glory projectspace, Berlin to Maa-tila, Helsinki.
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The British artist Ailsa Ferrier, working with the concept of ‘the eternal outsider’ will travel to Gotland –a Swedish isle, which lies geographically between Berlin and Helsinki. During the opening evenings, she will hold her own solitary performance, titled: OB SKENE, which will be made visible to the audience by a text piece in the gallery.
Ailsa Ferrier - OB SKENE, © 2008
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In her work Keine Zeit für einszweidrei (No Time for onetwothree) the German artist Sonya Schönberger plays with persisting preconceptions arising from ignorance and laziness. What does one find on the internet when looking for preconceived stereotypes of ‘Finns’ and ‘Germans’, depicted as both ‘self’ and as ‘the other’? The text inscribed plate questions how one can consume and deal with this information.
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Küchenballerina (2008) is the title of the latest work by video artist Christiane Frey. Whilst the ballerina tries to dance to Tschaikowsky’s Swan lake, along her kitchenette several things prepare themselves in magical ways: a kettle starts boiling, a drink mixes itself, a dishwasher fills itself up and in the pan eggs and bacon sizzle. The clumsy physical performance of the ballerina and the mundainity of a domestic scene deliberately contradict the pathos of the ballet and lend the piece the character of a parody. The attempt to discipline oneself and to fulfil all expectations at once, or to multi-task is doomed to fail, which can be read both as a sneer about untouchable stereotypical gender criticism and Zeitgeist.
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Henna & Elina Vainio - Odd Sympathy (detail) //// Time, © 2008
Finnish identical twins, Henna & Elina Vainio, will show their split installation Odd Sympathy, based on a text by Allan Kaprow. One half of a formalised domestic scene exists in each gallery, with the missing half web-streamed live to the opposing city. A study of symmetry and asymmetry, equivalences and equals, Henna and Elina have created two interactive stages that share the same chronology.
Another work included in the exhibition, Time, consists of two synchronised flip-clocks with lapel microphones amplifying the sound of each minute.
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Jaakko Eino Kalevi’s music is a good-natured mix of electro, disco and funk. He has previously played in bands Laulurastas, Profeetta & Uusi maailmanuskonto and Muuan Mies. This self-taught musician and a part-time tram driver has an unique stage charisma that was witnessed by many at last year’s Flow Festival in Helsinki and Uuden Musiikin Festivaali in Turku. Jaakko will open The Time of Distance Project at Hope&Glory in Berlin. The gig - 18th April 2008 - will be live-streamed to the Gallery Myymälä2 in Helsinki.
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Mari Keski-Korsu - MEGA, © 2008
/// For Mari Keski-Korsu's project MEGA, please click here
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The Time of Distance - 10 days of simultaneous precisely synchronized events taking place in both Helsinki and Berlin. These events, which comprise of a visual art exhibition, one-off dance and performance pieces, short film screenings and related gallery talks are scheduled to run like clock-work.
The participating artists exhibit work in both cities concurrently or will make work as a development on the curatorial theme. Examples of the type of work we are hosting are: performances which are live-streamed to the other city, double installations, radio broadcasts, photo’s which only make sense when they are coupled together…
Program Schedule:
18th April 08:
Exhibition opening with performances by Arne De Boever and Julia Prezewowsky
Berlin(GMT+1) 18:00 FIELD Live / Web-stream
Helsinki (GMT+2) 19:00 Maa-tila Live / Web stream
Jaakko Eino Kalevi
Berlin (GMT+1) 20:00 FIELD Live
Helsinki (GMT+2) 21:00 Myymälä2 Web-stream
19th April 08:
Exhibition opening with karaoke performance with Patrick Jambon, performance by Linda Franke
Berlin (GMT+1) 19:00 Hope&Glory Web-stream
Helsinki (GMT+2) 20:00 Myymälä2 / Maa-tila Live
19th- 27th April 08:
Mulholland Dr. - Marathon / live performance by Sanni Priha
Berlin (GMT+1) ongoing, Hope&Glory Live
Helsinki (GMT+2) ongoing, Maa-tila Web-stream
20th April 08:
Gallery discussion with Arne De Boever and James Thompson & Guest
Berlin (GMT+1) 14:00 FIELD Live
Helsinki (GMT+2) 15:00 Maa-tila Web-stream
23rd April 08:
Synchronized Gallery Discourse, Residency artist: Mari Keski-Korsu
Berlin (GMT+1) 19:00 FIELD Live
Helsinki (GMT+2) 20:00 Maa-tila Web-stream
Supported by the Arts Council of Finland
25th April 08:
Transidency & Future Shorts - Short film evening with Q&A
Berlin (GMT+1) ACUD 19:00
Helsinki (GMT+2) Kino Andorra 20:00
Tickets 5 E
26th April 08:
Discourse Lab @ FIELD with Christine Nippe, Morton Dysgaard & Guest Speaker
(to be announced)
Berlin (GMT+1) 19:00 FIELD Live / Web-stream
Helsinki (GMT+2) 20:00 Maa-tila Live / Web-stream
27th April 08:
Exhibition Finnisage *
Berlin (GMT+1) 17:00 Hope&Glory
Helsinki (GMT+2) 18:00 Maa-tila
*FIELD project space exhibition runs till 10th May
http://www.thehopeandglory.net/
http://www.taidekoulumaa.fi/maa-tila/
The Time of Distance is part of the official program of Helsinkiss Berlin, organized by the Metropolitan District of the City of Helsinki, Music Export Finland, the Embassy of Finland in Germany and the Finnland Institut, Berlin. For more information, click here:
Transidency The Time of Distance is kindly supported by:
