May 5, 2022

Scope BLN and LIGHT YEAR

present

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URBAN ALGORITHMS

 

Featuring works by: Dennis Rudolph, Daniel Molnar, Jung Soo Cho, Vasilena Gankovska and Anne Glassner

 

Curated by: Boris Kostadinov

 

Urban Algorithms is a program presenting brand new short films from near and far. What they have in common is that they interpret meanings, influences and attitudes towards the urban environment.

Some of these works explore the very specific events to find the everyday poetics of the city, while others build utopian constructions and turn this environment into an object of mythologizing, visual and intellectual manipulation.

 

DAS PORTAL At the End of the World by Dennis Rudolph takes us to the “other side” of his project Das Portal in California City in the Mojave Desert. This other side is the Virtual Reality. The artist recreated the landscape of the city in the game engine Unity using Google height maps and satellite photos. 

Using a VR 3D painting software which tracks his artistic hand and allows him to transport his gesture into the realm of the digital, the artist started painting on top of the virtual recreation of this failed city. The digital paintings take their inspiration from the ceiling fresco Triumph of Divine Providence by Cortona - a major baroque art work.

Originally Das Portal was an update of Rodins Gates to Hell which Rudolph completed in the medium of Augmented Reality in 2018. It is marking the end of the western world. Rudolph painted Das Portal in a virtual reality headset using a 3D painting software. He placed the final work with a GPS based Augmented Reality app for smart phones on the designated location in California City. The work is thus there and not-there at the same time.

 

The video XROADS by Daniel Molnar (Function Store) is the result of two generative algorithms developed by the artist. One separates video into different 3D layers based on pixel luminance values, the other uses complex mathematical formulas to re-map the pixel coordinates.  

For the artist the generative algorithms themselves are the real artwork and the by-product is what you can see, which does not intend to convey any deeper meaning. However, the audience is welcome to make up their own story.

Traffic and crossroads, as well as pedestrians, take on the role of repetitive elements of a visual labyrinth whose meditative essence is enhanced by the sound of the video.

 

For her work Presentation 22, Jung Soo Cho says that it is a diary, reflection, poem, from the first 3 months of encountering the city of Berlin, while physically, and emotionally moving into Berlin from her home - Seoul, the artist was in between past and future, night and day, familiarity and unfamiliarity. The artist focuses on the odd sense of time and space that she felt outside of acquaintance and habit. 

Jung Soo Cho also shares about her work:

„1. Radio. One evening in my studio in Berlin, listening to music selections from radio, for people in Seoul for those who start their day gave me an odd sense of time.

2. German Newspaper. Newspapers are a medium of information "to be read". Meanwhile, the Berlin newspaper in German came to me as more material. Layers of newspaper appearing in this video are leftovers from the ongoing newspaper collage work. In this collage work, I cut out colors like pixels and recombined them into images of everyday and personal objects so that no icon could be recognized in a newspaper. 

3. Opacity. Changing the opacity of an image on the screen is easy with a single motion of my finger. In the real world we live in prediction often collapses.  When everything feels transparent, I can see the other side very well but soon after everything becomes opaque and I can't see at all. Or vice versa, I suddenly saw things that I didn’t see.”

 

Seestadt – Holidays Like Before is a project by Vasilena Gankovska and Anne Glassner (2G). In August 2021, the two artists decided to remain in their home base and spend their holidays in Seestadt, the youngest district of Vienna, Austria. For this purpose, they booked a room there and took the metro, in order to reach the destination. The video shows their experiences in Feel Good Apartments and the area around: walking to the beach, playing at the lake, hanging with their fancy outfits were some of their favorite activities. Whilst they are strolling around the concrete promenades, they both reflect about their childhood memories during the 1990ties they had in Italy or Spain. They experience various funny and clumsy moments, which gives the whole experience a sense for absurdity. This is also the leading part of the soundtrack – an easy-going rap song, which some synthesizer background playful melodies. The playgrounds look different, the new concrete city dystopian but the longing for moments of satisfaction will never disappear. On a meta level, the project reflects upon the current economic and social state of circumstances.

 

LIST OF THE VIDEOS:

 

Dennis Rudolph

DAS PORTAL – At the end of the world, 11:43, 2022

 

Daniel Molnar (Function Store)

XROADS, 02:24, 2022

 

Jung Soo Cho

Presentation 22, 05:54, 2022

 

Vasilena Gankovska and Anne Glassner (2G)

Seestadt – Holidays Like Before, 07:30, 2022

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