Contour 2011 - 5th Biennial of Moving Image
27 Aug - 30 Oct 2011
Contour 2011 - 5th Biennial of Moving Image
Sound and Vision: Beyond Reason
27 August - 30 October 2011
Curator: Anthony Kiendl
Mechelen (BEL) hosts a unique initiative for people with an interest in contemporary art as well as architectural history. The biennial presents artists working with film, video and installation in special locations in the historical inner city of Mechelen.
The fifth edition bears the mark of the Canadian curator Anthony Kiendl. Under the title ‘Sound and Vision: Beyond Reason’, the exhibition explores the intersections of music, contemporary film and video and post-conceptual art.
Kiendl: “Popular music accompanies or is constitutive of some of our most meaningful and widely shared cultural moments. The ecstatic potential of rock music provides a space to exceed standardised terms of representation, language and control. Rather than staging a meeting of isolated fields of cultural production (music and art), ‘Sound and Vision: Beyond Reason’ seeks to trouble the autonomy of art, music and film, and the singular identities of artist, musician or filmmaker. More than an exercise in juxtaposition, translation or transposition, this exhibition offers a complex matrix of sound, image, signal, noise, and meaning.
As in any medium, the structural components of film and video – light, sound, motion and optics – are dependent upon the human body and consciousness to cohere meaning. The transformation of experience, and the expansion of consciousness, has historically been a preoccupation in rock music, one that combines both physical and conceptual realms. The body has always been implicated in rock music; to ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ was a euphemism for having sex. The mythologised promise of rock music is freedom, and rebellion, and by extension, utopia.
The accumulation of knowledge, emotion, and physical experience in art, music and film can exceed the boundaries of language and knowledge management. As a biennial of the moving image, particularly one that foregrounds the architectural space of the city as part of its program, these notions might provide a forum for the social construction of space. The crossroad of sound and vision pushes the limits of cultural transformation, for example, in the ways that we may implicate the excesses of the human body as a conduit and agent in radicalising social practice.”
Artists:
Cory Arcangel (USA)
Pierre Bismuth (FRA)
Chicks on Speed (AUS/DEU/ESP/USA)
Edith Dekyndt (BEL)
Gabriela Fridriksdottir & Lazyblood (ISL)
Noam Gonick & Luis Jacob (CAN)
Dan Graham (USA)
Rodney Graham (CAN)
Brion Gysin & Ian Sommerville (CAN/GBR)
Joachim Koester (DNK)
Adam Pendleton (USA)
Postcommodity (USA)
Lee Ranaldo & Leah Singer (USA/CAN)
Dennis Tyfus (BEL)
Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (BEL)
Jennifer West (USA)
Sound and Vision: Beyond Reason
27 August - 30 October 2011
Curator: Anthony Kiendl
Mechelen (BEL) hosts a unique initiative for people with an interest in contemporary art as well as architectural history. The biennial presents artists working with film, video and installation in special locations in the historical inner city of Mechelen.
The fifth edition bears the mark of the Canadian curator Anthony Kiendl. Under the title ‘Sound and Vision: Beyond Reason’, the exhibition explores the intersections of music, contemporary film and video and post-conceptual art.
Kiendl: “Popular music accompanies or is constitutive of some of our most meaningful and widely shared cultural moments. The ecstatic potential of rock music provides a space to exceed standardised terms of representation, language and control. Rather than staging a meeting of isolated fields of cultural production (music and art), ‘Sound and Vision: Beyond Reason’ seeks to trouble the autonomy of art, music and film, and the singular identities of artist, musician or filmmaker. More than an exercise in juxtaposition, translation or transposition, this exhibition offers a complex matrix of sound, image, signal, noise, and meaning.
As in any medium, the structural components of film and video – light, sound, motion and optics – are dependent upon the human body and consciousness to cohere meaning. The transformation of experience, and the expansion of consciousness, has historically been a preoccupation in rock music, one that combines both physical and conceptual realms. The body has always been implicated in rock music; to ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ was a euphemism for having sex. The mythologised promise of rock music is freedom, and rebellion, and by extension, utopia.
The accumulation of knowledge, emotion, and physical experience in art, music and film can exceed the boundaries of language and knowledge management. As a biennial of the moving image, particularly one that foregrounds the architectural space of the city as part of its program, these notions might provide a forum for the social construction of space. The crossroad of sound and vision pushes the limits of cultural transformation, for example, in the ways that we may implicate the excesses of the human body as a conduit and agent in radicalising social practice.”
Artists:
Cory Arcangel (USA)
Pierre Bismuth (FRA)
Chicks on Speed (AUS/DEU/ESP/USA)
Edith Dekyndt (BEL)
Gabriela Fridriksdottir & Lazyblood (ISL)
Noam Gonick & Luis Jacob (CAN)
Dan Graham (USA)
Rodney Graham (CAN)
Brion Gysin & Ian Sommerville (CAN/GBR)
Joachim Koester (DNK)
Adam Pendleton (USA)
Postcommodity (USA)
Lee Ranaldo & Leah Singer (USA/CAN)
Dennis Tyfus (BEL)
Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (BEL)
Jennifer West (USA)