[spectre] exh Our House Is a House That Moves@Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana

[Natasa Petresin]

May 7 - June 11 2004, Skuc Gallery, Ljubljana:
OUR HOUSE IS A HOUSE THAT MOVES
(Quote from lyrics by Franz Treichler, The Young Gods, Courtesy Pas Mal
Publishing.)

The exhibition was a part of the festival Steirischer Herbst 2003, Graz,
Austria and was presented at the Pavelhaus in Laafeld, Austria, in October
2003.

link: www.galerija.skuc-drustvo.si/2004/ourhouse/index.htm

Artists:
Ursula Berlot (Ljubljana)
Ilana Halperin (Glasgow)
Edi Hila (Tirana)
Tim Knowles (London)
Aydan Murtezaoglu (Istanbul)
The Otolith Group (Kodwo Eshun, Richard Couzins & Anjalika Sagar, London)
Tobias Putrih (New York/Ljubljana)
Steven Rand (New York)
Rubedo (Vesna Petresin & Laurent-Paul Robert, London) & The Young Gods
(Geneve)
Egill Sabjörnsson (Berlin/Reykjavik)
Einar Thorsteinn (Berlin)
Sislej Xhafa (New York)

Curator: Natasa Petresin


About the concept of the exhibition:

'When we think of space as being measurable, divisible, and composed of
points plotting possible positions that objects may occupy, we are
stopping the world in thought. Grids happen. The fact is that with every
move, with every change, there is something new to the world, an added
reality. The world is self-augmenting.' (Brian Massumi, Parables for the
Virtual. Movement, Affect, Sensation, 2002)

At the beginning of the 20th century, the uncertainty principle of Werner
Heisenberg and the relativity theory opened up the universe of the quantum
mechanics and weakened the reference points of the Cartesian-Newtonian
system, the belief in the scientific knowledge and the superiority of the
mind, through which we have been describing our reality for some
centuries. The uncertainty principle has showed that at the subatomic and
atomic level the events do not occur with certainty in at definite place
and in definite times, but rather one can indicate the 'tendencies to
occur'. In contrast to the mechanistic Cartesian view of the world, the
world in the modern physics turned out to be an interactive, organic,
ecological and holistic phenomenon. Parallel to these scientific
researches, new theories of our perception and the perception of the body,
the 'flesh' as Merleau-Ponty defined it, emerged. Within them the proofs
were made about the mutual interaction and influence between the observer
and the observed matter, and the experience of the observer at describing
the system has been included. Regarding these shifts in the science,
contemporary physician John Wheeler calls for omitting the old word
"observer" and use instead of it the new term "participator". Thus the
participatory reality consists of basic concepts of the movement,
sensation and affects through which we experience space, realities, time
and consciousness. Gilles Deleuze speaks of the "smooth" space, as opposed
to the "striated" space. The smooth space is the one constructed by
nomadic subjects that move along the trajectory in-between two points, not
from one point to another. This subject is no longer a substance fixed
between the mind and the body, but a process, a becoming that is being
managed by constant shifts and negotiations between various material and
semiotic conditions.

The only constant in today's world is the change in the shape of a
non-linear process. The political economy of such world tends to maintain
the uncertainty- and fear-management that these changes cause. We can
speak of a state of constant crisis. The changes within science throughout
the 20th century have proved the relativity of truth in science and how
its approximations defined the traditional concepts and theories. Because
of the limitations, the rational mind can never provide a complete
description of reality. Science and media thus do not deal with truth, but
with approximated descriptions of reality. Or as Werner Heisenberg already
put it: "Every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a
limited range of applicability."

The artists within the exhibition Our House Is A House That Moves deal
with the continuity of the movement, the changing and impermanence of the
phenomena in us as well as in nature. Within the frame of their production
they expand and draw together the borders between the disciplines like art
and science (The Otolith Group, Uršula Berlot, Steven Rand, Tim Knowles),
or they comment on the esoteric sciences (Einar Thorsteinn). In their
projects they invent utopias or visualise "science fiction of the present"
(Ilana Halperin, The Otolith Group, Einar Thorsteinn, Tobias Putrih), and
open up the field of metaphoric and literal confrontation with the reality
as an always-evading entity with a simulation (Egill Sabjörnsson),
processual procedures (Steven Rand), manipulated view (Aydan Murtezaoglu),
documenting (Edi Hila), ironic relationship towards the reality and the
symbolic (Sislej Xhafa), and with the computer animation and sound
(Rubedo&The Young Gods).


Accompanying Programme::

in May, at the Skuc Gallery: A talk with the free-lance curator and
theoretician Dr. Inke Arns (Berlin), moderated by Nataša Petrešin.

Wednesday, May 12th at 8 p.m., at the Information Centre of Museum of
Modern Art: a lecture by the concept engineer and author Kodwo Eshun
(London) in the frame of the Festival Pomladi (www.festivalpomladi.com).
In collaboration with Zavod Projekt Atol.


The exhibition was supported by the Ministry of Culture of Republic of
Slovenia, Municipality of Ljubljana - Department of Culture and Research,
Adria Airways, Zavod Projekt Atol.