Spring Fever

Spring is coming! The season in which everything starts to blossom. The Netherlands Media Art Institute gives a taste of spring with an exhibition of blooming talent. Spring Fever! presents four inspiring premières by upcoming video artists from Amsterdam.

During two weeks Spring Fever! shows video and installation work by Sami Kallinen, Flow (2005), Magnus Monfeldt, The Deprived Eye part I (2006) & part II (2005/2006): “Do You See the Same Blue As Me” (2006), Guido van der Werve, Nummer 5 (2006) and Stefanos Tsivopoulos, The Stunt (2006).

Sami Kallinen - Flow (2005) The work Flow by Sami Kallinen is a poetic and the same time highly disturbing video installation in which people go through very different states of mind as they seem to float in an undefined space in slow motion. As if in a dream, there seem to be no limitations in time or space. From time to time the bodies are shaken by strong emotional eruptions that manifest themselves physically. Like in Kallinens’ other works, extreme and even drastic sentiments are shown in a candid and moving but never pathetic way.

Magnus Monfeldt – The Deprived Eye part I (2006) & part II (2005/2006) The Deprived Eye by Magnus Monfeldt examines – like many of his other works - the mechanisms of memory .On two screens, graphic patterns of black and white lines are featured. The flow of these lines is composed to trigger associations with natural and urban settings. These kind of lines were often used in research on the workings of the most complex structure in the universe: the human brain. Through somewhat cruel experiments involving kittens, scientists have tried to understand how and where memory is stored. These kittens were brought up within vertically or horizontally striped environments with one eyelid sewed shut. Their deprived eye was subsequently opened and the direction of the stripes was changed, with recordings of their brain cell activity being made all the while. The notion flown taken from this research concludes ­, 'If we could only disconnect memory, we couldsee the world with new eyes'.

Guido van der Werve – Nummer vijf “b” (2006) In Nummer vijf “b” van der Werve has invited an a cappella band called Achteloos to perform the well-known religious American song “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, while the artist performs “I’ve got the whole world in my hands” on a guitar apparently pretty wasted. Like in most works by Guido van der Werve, the story has a humorous as well as a melancholic side, and leads to a somewhat surprising ending.

Stefanos Tsivopoulos – The Stunt (2006) The work The Stunt is a double video projection of a fight scene. Two professional stuntmen act out stereotypical violent scenes from movies. Every punch, hit or kick is like a word or a phrase. The repetition of the filmed sequence and its placement as a reflection of itself duplicate the event and question both its authenticity and originality. By separating the action from its content, the scene obviously becomes ­the end product of a meticulous construction.

Pressetext

Spring Fever
Exhibition with 4 premieres from young local talent

mit Sami Kallinen, Magnus Monfeldt, Guido van der Werve en Stefanos Tsivopoulos