Re:Whispers
Whispers is a collaborative work by Katrin Caspar and Eeva-Liisa Puhakka. Parallel to their ongoing collaborative vision, Caspar and Puhakka have both produced individual art work that reflects and addresses themes of interdependence, the individual and perspectives on the process of collective working dynamics. The two other pieces in the exhibition look at aspects of communication, animal gaze and human-machine relations and behaviors.
The sound installation Whispers consists of a set of small objects that record and play back sound live in space. For each object a small computing unit, originally taken from speaking toys, is combined with a speaker and a microphone for sound processing as well as a motor in order to create movements. Each object is a performer that receives and plays back all nearby sounds it can pick up from its neighbour and the visitors. At the same time as every unit works on its own, it also becomes part of a larger system creating a situation of live sampling. Over time the mimicked sounds get fragmented and distorted turning information into noise until, if not bounced back anymore, they get lost in space. Like birds in the forest the objects try to impress each other getting louder, screaming more, or becoming quiet.
Katrin Caspar is an artist who works with electromechanical material creating mainly kinetic sculptures and sound installations, often inspired by everyday objects. She is interested in systems and network structures, their organization and potential rules and on a more complex level on their behaviors, how they act and perform and their possibilities for storytelling. Katrin graduated from the University of Arts Bremen with Bachelor of Digital Media and received a Master in Fine Arts from at the Valand School of Fine Arts in Göteborg. Her works has been shown amongst others at OHP Festival, Media Lab Prado, Pixelache Festival, Ostrale Dresden, LEAP Berlin, Kunstwerke Berlin, Transmediale, VIA/EXIT, Festival and WRO Media Art Biennale. www.katrincaspar.net
Eeva-Liisa Puhakka is a Finnish artist working with media art, video art, installations, time based art and environmental art. Puhakka creates art works which are moments, atmospheric experiences and narratives at the same time. Her works appear like surreal images in which fiction and reality meet, meanings shift, past and present fuse. By putting the viewer in the middle of the installation, she creates the work through direct experience and the experience transmits through images, sound, objects and even smells. By applying a poetic language she absorbs the storytelling art in her art practice. The personal history, memory and past tradition are as important. She received a MFA from the Valand School of Fine Arts in Göteborg and a MSc in Helsinki University of Technology. Her works has been shown in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Germany, France, Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, UK, Egypt, Senegal and the United States; in amongst others at Ostrale Dresden, WRO Media Art Festival, Piksel Norway, Cairo Video Festival, VIA/EXIT and KW Berlin. www.eeva-liisa.net
Opening Reception Friday March18th, 6-9pm the exhibition continues through Sunday April 3rd.
© Hendrik Zeitler