Ralo Mayer

Transcription

Ralo Mayer

RALO MAYEɌ
Ꮃorks 20Ꮊ�─201ȝ
Ausstellungsstr· № 49/7, 1020 Wien, ‡⁴³ 650 7256662
http://was-ist-multiplex.info
Outer space, ecology, models, time machines are four terms
around things I have found intriguing for some time now.
If there is some basic common issue in most of my works, it's probably the relation
between nature and society. This separation is a modern invention that has shaped our
world as much as its ongoing collapse is linked to a good deal of today's crises.
CO₂ molecules, the Berlin Wall, bananas, space colonies, Kurt Waldheim, BP stock shares,
or a dashcam clip of the Chelyabinsk meteor on YouTube – all of these things can be objects
of complex relationships transgressing the separated spheres of nature and society. In
my artistic investigations I try to explore such networks through a wide range of subjects
from the recent past, the present or potential futures, from post-Fordist economy to natural
science, from space flight to everyday life.
This is where I have increasingly become interested in Ecology – not as in free-range
eggs, Greenpeace or subsidized solar power, but as broader conceptual framework of
relationships. Ecology has as much to do with nature as space exploration has to do with the
vacuum of outer space. Landing on the barren lunar surface was a function of the Cold War,
and climate change is at the same time a process of chemical reactions, a transformation of
planetary life, and a matter of industrial production, economy, politics and everyday culture.
Science Fiction is a recurring theme in my work, particularly two popular devices, the time
machine and the simulation/model. Reflecting each other and the entire genre alike, they
are enduring narrative figures to discuss the structuring of time and space in our own social
realities. This interest in models and performativity lead to my research series HOW TO DO
THINGS WITH WORLDS, which in turn launched my to date most extensive project, an
ongoing investigation of Biosphere 2, an all but forgotten artificial world in miniature. The
ecological experiment was also a test for space colonies, a model of our planet as much as a
time machine through the past decades.
Biosphere 2's heyday, the late 1980s to early 90s, coincide with an era of global changes,
from a shifting balance of powers to digital technologies and communication. It is a time
frame of a few peculiar years that keeps fascinating me also in other works.
What is artistic research, what could be its methods and outcome? I find these questions
as challenging as persistent throughout my practice. My actual strategies are often based on
a concept of performative research: a processual and playful approach employing dramatic
means like script, roles and props to avoid routines or plain illustrations. The resulting
ensembles are most often unruly monsters of translation between film, installation or
performance. Instead of didactic presentations of final results they are experimental setups
through which I hope to engage the viewers' spatial and visual perception, activating their
own investigations of things.
Beside what's simplistically mostly credited as single artist work I have been active in
various collectives, i.e. the Manoa Free University, a self-organized setting for experiments
of learning and unlearning. And from time to time I publish issues of multiplex fiction, a Sci-Fi
magazine in the literal sense.
Bio: Born 1976 in Eisenstadt, Austria. Lives and works in Vienna. Studies of comparative literature and
linguistics, completed studies of visual art, Art Academies Vienna (conceptual art: Renée Green, Marina
Gržinić) and Copenhagen (mur og rum: Yvette Brackman, Rirkrit Tiravanija)
Exhibitions: see following pages
Works in collections like Österreichische Galerie Belvedere, Austrian Arthothek, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz
Recent Awards and Scholarships: Linz Triennale Award (2010), Austrian Staatsstipendium Bildende
Kunst (2011), Otto-Mauer-Preis (2012)
Selected catalogue publications:
Woran glauben die Motten, wenn sie zu den Lichtern streben, with Texts by Graham Harman, Jon McKenzie,
Ursula Maria Probst, ed. by Stella Rollig and Sabine Schaschl, Nürnberg 2011.
Das Muster der Schatten des Spaceframe der Biosphere 2, ed. by Annette Südbeck, secession, Vienna 2008
BC21 Contemporary Art Award: Marlene Haring, Ralo Mayer, Christoph Meier, Anna Witt, ed. by Agnes
Hussein-Arco and Antonella Mei-Pochtler, Belvedere, Vienna, 2013
Content: Most stuff is presented according to research projects
More information on was-ist-multiplex.info
For access to videos please get in touch.
Obviously a Major Malfunction / KAGO KAGO KAGO BE
(Woran glauben die Motten, wenn sie zu den Lichtern streben)
2011 - 2013
Mixed media installation, videos
Exhibitions: Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz; Kunsthaus Baselland; das weisse Haus, Vienna
The Ninth Biospherian2007 - 2013
Artistic investigation of Biosphere 2's history and legacy
Exhibitions: Secession Vienna; Triennale, Linz; Argos, Brussels; 21er Haus, Vienna;
Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck
I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT THIS PLACE BUT I'M GOING TO PROMOTE IT Public space, Chengdu
2008
HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORLDS
Research series about models, various projects
2006 -
Biosphere Atelier Méliès2006
Forum Statdtpark / Steirischer Herbst, Graz
Zurück mit der Zukunft! (Back with that Future!) 2007
Festival der Regionen, Upper Austria
Manoa Free University2003 - 2008
Various projects
Gothenburg N.B.2002 - 2005
Video, installations, publications
LIMES: bioborder/park/spektakel 2001
Essay film
border sounds2001
Sound work
(Woran glauben die Motten, wenn sie zu den Lichtern
streben) 2011-2013
Mixed media installations, Videos
Solo exhibitions: Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, Kunsthaus Baselland, das weisse haus, Wien
NASA's Space Shuttle program as an object of recent history – three decades between
departures and catastrophes. The space shuttle as time machine.
Obviously a Major Malfunction / KAGO KAGO KAGO BE (suit), 2011/2013
Stoff, Plexiglas, Video (HD1080p, 21 min). Courtesy Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz. Exhibition view Kunsthaus Baselland, photo: Viktor Kolibàl
Obviously a Major Malfunction / KAGO KAGO (...) 2011-2013
9, 8, 6: And then the first people have been
ˮtorn1, apart.
Some by their inner contradictions. Some
between their dreams and the life outside. But the
astronauts have been torn apart because the fuel
leaked from the rocket. (...)
And the moths are flying towards the lights / Zig, Zag
/ flying zigzag into the light /
burning up, it stinks.
Nobody knows why. No scientist knows why the
moths are flying into the light.
Just what do the moths believe in, when they're
aspiring towards the lights?
[from the child's script, originally german]
Video still, HD 1080p with sound, 45min.
Exhibition view from Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, photo: MaschekS
from the exhibition folder at Lentos:
In a new large-scale installation Mayer continues his exemplary exploration of objects in time and
space, focusing on “the most complex machine of all times”. This title rightfully belongs to the US
Space Shuttle, with more than 2.5 million individual components.
Two space shuttles broke apart in mid-air, in 1986 and in 2003. When the Challenger disintegrated into plumes of white smoke, a NASA commentator famously informed the tens of millions of
horror-stricken viewers on TV that “obviously a major malfunction” had occurred.
But what happened in the time between these two shuttle disasters? Mayer’s reconstruction
features not only charred remains of space exploration but as well fragments from Chernobyl, the
Berlin Wall and the Twin Towers.
Charcoaled wood, dark Plexiglas, multichannel video (HD1080p, DV-Pal), Laserprints,
textiles, collected objects and memorabilia from space exploration
exhibition views from Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz, photos: MaschekS
(left)
installation detail (totem)
all issues of german news magazine “Der Spiegel” from 1986, nailed to a charcoaled
wooden pole
The space shuttle was a Western icon, a symbol promising technological progress and
Western superiority. Its Cargo Bay transported not only satellites and experiments, but
also ideological loads of a “free society” or about “conquering nature”.
In an emancipatory interpretation of so-called cargo cults the installation presents the shuttle's KAGO and its debris, inviting visitors to start reconstructions themselves. A network of
things around the space shuttle – not as Verschwörungs-Theorie (conspiracy theory), but as
Beschwörung (invocation).
(above) exhibition views Kunsthaus Baselland
(right) video still from pseudo-3d wiggle stereograms
of NASA photos, reflected on curved plexiglas
The spatial realization is based on NASA-photos from the two shuttle-disasters' investigation efforts. The recovered debris was collected and recontructed in giant hangars to find a
possible cause of the disasters.
The installation's main modules are two “wings”, built from charcoaled wood and plexi-glass and
designed at scale 1:3 after NASA's reconstruction grids and shuttle shapes. On these wings are
vast collections of found objects and space memorabilia, a reconstruction logic that resembles
the unquestionable seriousness of child's play.
1986, 2003, (POST-89). If there would be only one wall, and this wall would
only display three images: On the left, the cloud sculpture of the Challenger,
1986. On the right, the glowing debris tail of the Columbia, 2003. In the
middle: a collapsed hangar. In it, partly covered by the collapsed structure:
the wreckage of the Soviet shuttle. The Buran, a clone of the US space shuttle,
flew only once, unmanned, before the program got cancelled after the
collapse of the Soviet Union. Photo taken in the late 1990s.
Obviously a Major Malfunction / KAGO KAGO KAGO BE (Bildstrecke), 2011/2013
A4-Prints of digital collages under dark plexiglass
RECOLLECTIONS OF VERONA RUPES. Miranda, moon of Uranus, about the size of France, Switzerland, Slovenia and Austria combined. Nobody cared about this small world, until January 24th, 1986,
when the robotic space probe Voyager 2 sailed past and sent home pictures of its rugged terrain; and in
these pictures was discovered Verona Rupes – the tallest known cliff of the solar system.
20 km steep, and still you wouldn’t give a shit, if it had not been discovered only four days before the
Challenger exploded, 73 seconds after launch, at 14.6 km altitude, its debris continuing along a ballistic
trajectory, the detached crew compartment peaking at a height of 19.8 km, 200 m short of V.R.’s record.
Voyager, however, continued sailing, attached to its side the Golden Record, containing sounds and
images of Earth, a message to extraterrestrial civilizations. One of which was spoken by Kurt Waldheim,
UN Secretary-General at the time of Voyager’s launch in 1977. Yet, as of early 1986 Mr. Waldheim’s
rather distant past had caught public attention, when the Austrian presidential candidate proclaimed
revealing blackouts on his own participation in Nazi crimes.
Verona Rupes, abyss of the abyss, steepest cliff of all!
AUF DEN DÄCHERN LIEGT KAGO. In den Bäumen hängt Kago. Mitten in der Strasse liegt Kago.
Kago hat Krater geschlagen, viele Krater, viele Wiesen. Ganz Texas hat Kago bekommen. Tausend und
nochmal Tausend Menschen bilden Reihen und die Reihen (ziehen) durch den Wald. Alle suchen Kago.
The Ninth Biospherian
2007-2013 (ongoing)
Artistic Research
Videos, objects, installations, performance, publications, film
From 1991-1993 eight people lived inside Biosphere 2, a self-sufficient miniature world under
glass. The unparalleled experiment explored global ecological processes as well as
probing the viability of closed systems for future space colonies.
The Ninth Biospherian is the title of an imaginary Science Fiction novel based on this spectacular
project. It traces the phantom of an alleged ninth crew-member still haunting the space age ruin.
My performative research is laid out as a translation of that imaginary book, translating
it into various media. This approach corresponds to the multifaceted history of a once celebrated, yet all but forgotten experiment and acknowledges it as a model of our world beyond a
purely biological miniature.
At once rooted in past utopias, its founders' coming from the 1960s counter-culture, and anticipating today's global ecological issues as well as inspiring reality shows, Biosphere 2 reflects
broader social and political developments. Built around 1989, the futurist crystal palace
is both a model of our world and a time-lapse apparatus concentrating the past decades.
The Ninth Biospherian 2007-2013 (ongoing)
Das Muster der Schatten des Spaceframe der Biosphere 2, das die Sonne am 26. September 2041 auf den Boden der Savanne projiziert, ähnelt
zwischen 10:24 und 14:02 auffällig einer Penrose Parkettierung; und
während ich diese Zeitrafferaufnahme der Ruine mehrmals betrachte,
spiegelt sich im Monitor der Blick aus dem Fenster nach draussen.
Solo exhibition, Secession, Vienna, 2008
English translation of the exhibition title:
The pattern of the shadows of the spaceframe of Biosphere 2, as projected onto the savannah's
ground by the sun on September 26th, 2041, bears a striking resemblance to a penrose tiling
from 10:24am to 2:02pm; and while I repeatedly watch this time-lapse recording of the ruin, the
view through the window is being reflected in the monitor screen.
Exhibition view, Secession, 2008
Closed ecosystem with shrimp, algae, microorganisms and seawater in glass-sphere, etched text and diagrams; withered banana plant, tulle with
flock-printed Penrose tiling, glass pane, timed strobe light, transducer speaker, unfired clay Penrose tiles. (Photo Oliver Ottenschläger)
Das Muster der Schatten des Spaceframe (...), exhibition views, Secession, 2008
The exhibition was structured around three “movies” in varying degrees of abstraction:
– a shadow-projection of a closed ecosystem
– a setup for a time-lapse studio, refering to early cinema pioneer Eadweard Muybridge
– a single channel video (a “ruin of a documentary”), which visitors could watch as ghostly
reflection on a glass pane.
Das Muster der Schatten des Spaceframe (...)
Installation detail, Secession, 2008
Die-cut Penrose tiles in unfired clay, imprinted with Futura
typeset
An intro is a footnote. Und eine Parataxe ist eine in sich
selbst faltende Falle. 2008
Installation view and stills
Single channel video with sound, monitor screen reflected
on glass pane. DV-Pal, 34 min., engl.
Performer: Krõõt Juurak
“Etwa mit geschlossenen Augen, Phosphene, Blue Arc, Haidinger-Büschel,
dergleichen, Formkonstanten einer politischen Ökologie; ja, in der Art lässt
sich der Gebäudekomplex darstellen, als Vorstellung. Archäologen entdeckten diese entoptischen Phänomene an den Wänden gewisser prähistorischer Höhlen. Da spricht nichts dagegen, dies auch hier zu blicken, als
Widerschein der Zukunft.” (p. 217 f.) That said, serendipity has been voted
the third hardest to translate word.
Mixed media installation at Triennale Linz, 2010
Installation view, Triennale 2010
Framed fresnel lenses; closed ecosystem; single channel video HD1080p
Installation views, Triennale 2010
Framed fresnel lenses; closed ecosystem; single channel
video reflected onn glass pane;
single channel video HD1080p; banana plant, printed tull,
clay tiles; 3d-lenticular print.W
The work was awarded the Triennale prize by an international jury.
“Ralo Mayer convinced the jury with his installation that was found to be consistently coherent in
its conception as well as the realization. In his work the artist investigates the relationship of art
and science and deals with one of the most important problems of our times: the threat to the
ecosystem. Ralo Mayer demonstrates the possibilities of alternative forms of living. For this he
makes use of modernist utopias and appeals to social and political responsibility. He forces us to
take a closer look through the microscope.”
I am sitting in a ruin, different from the one you are in now, and I‘m
contemplating a drop in midair resembling a novel (einer billigen Linse
gleich), so that now, in the midst of its far flung debris, we calmly and
adventurously go traveling through Biosphere 2, or: Anastylosis of Follies
Solo exhibition, Argos - centre for art and media, Brussels
From the Argos text by Ive Stevenheydens:
“…travelling through Biosphere 2, or: Anastylosis of Follies” is a subjective and often playful
anthology of various positions the artist adopts and thoughts he puts forward. (...)
It is possible, for instance, to interpret these objects as faux scientific studies, as film or theatre
props or, purely aesthetically, as sculptures. This ambiguity is echoed in the videos and written
works included in the circuit.”
Exhibition view, Argos, 2010
And turns and turns and I turn pages. (Und kommt nicht auf den Punkt,
nicht weil es keinen Punkt gäbe, nein; nein, es gibt so viele.) “Have another
shot,” the skeuomorphic whisper roared inside my ears, revealing endless
fields of view, captions of geometric arrangements way beyond dimensions 3+1. It was not without rekindled enthusiasm that I thus continued
reading p. 402-472: which describe footage of an automatic apparatus
scanning an abandoned room full of research about Biosphere 2, and what
appears to be notes for a screenplay, including the handwritten memo:
Dreh?buch. All the while accompanied by melancholic sounds of robotic
routines / “ÜBERSETZUNG UND VERRAT”
2-Channel video, HD 1080p with sound, Fresnel lense, 2012
Installation view from “Utopie Gesamtkunstwerk”, 21er Haus, Vienna, 2012
Courtesy Belvedere, Vienna / Photo: Natascha Unkart
An HD-screen is magnified and distorted by a Fresnel lense. It shows continous
automated scans of the interior of Biosphere 2. The individual framings of this 360
degree scan depict endless variations of botanic and technological structures blending together, accompanied by the nostalgic machine sound of the camera's robotic
routines.
On the second screen, in portrait mode, we can see texts appearing, black on white,
another effort to get a hold of Biosphere 2. Letter by letter words are appearing, we
can follow the actual writing process. A real-time observation of a struggling for a
text, something like a script, a textual translation of the robotic scans.
Ein Blick durch Millionen Tropfen, die sich durch Kondensation an der
Innenseite des Glashauses sammeln; Erinnerungen an vergangene Zukünfte; die Liste möglicher Bibliografien zu “Biosphere 2: Projections
of N-Dimensional Architecture”, S. 152 ff; Inventur der Anagramme von
WHAT IS LIFE, z.B. I FELT A WISH.
Solo exhibition, Kunstpavillon, Innsbruck, 2008
Inventory / Invocation
4-channel video with sound, DV-Pal, 8min., engl.;
withered plants.
Installation views, Kunstpavillon, 2008
Test module of Biosphere 2 (1989 /2009)
Digital collage, 2013
An old Biospherian press photo superimposed with a
contemporary shot at the abandoned site.
frnknst9n Invocation
(There's something lurking in the space between)
Single channel video, HD1080p with sound, 15 min., Fresnel lense, 2013
Stills and installation view from BC21 Award Nomination exhibition, 21er Haus, Vienna
Contemporary shots and time-lapse sequences of Biosphere 2 are digitally broken up by archival footage.
Phantoms of past futures rip through the farbric of time and media history.
I HAVE NO IDEA ABOUT THIS PLACE BUT I'M GOING
TO PROMOTE IT 2008
Intervention in public space, Chengdu, China
Eight Banners printed with short slogans translated to Chinese, Photo documentation
(top)
Translation: Imagine a Western curator seeing a
photo of this banner
(left)
Translation of red-yellow banner in the center:
I have no idea about this place but I’m going
to promote it
During a residency in Chengdu I put up eight red banners in addition to the ubiquitious
Chinese propaganda, announcement and commercial banners. The texts on my banners
were translated to Chinese and comment on the typical local banners as well as on my own position as a Western artist working for three months in a totally unfamiliar context.
The work anticipates also its own presentation and reception in a Western exhibition;
at its center stand various forms of translations between languages and different cultural spaces.
Zurück mit der Zukunft! (Back with that Future!)
2007
(with Philipp Haupt)
single channel video installation, 5.1 Surround Sound, 26 min.
Festival der Regionen, Kirchdorf, Upper Austria
Site-Specific Science Fiction in the Austrian countryside – shown in a deserted local shopping mall, the work takes us into a slightly exaggerated future of the Kirchdorf county, based on
an industrial past and today's economic changes in globalized markets.
An artificial intelligence (established Austrian theatre actor Hermann Scheidleder), troubled by a
bipolar disorder, presents the future history of a HighTech company. After taking over the entire
region in 2009, the company transformed it into a vast real-time simulation for market research.
The video installation depicts the present as an imaginary future's past; today's local area is interpreted through a sample of actual economic HighTech clusters and IT-parks as well as young
computer game enthusiasts.
Biosphere Atelier Méliès
2006
Mixed media installation, poster publication
No Space is Innocent, Forum Stadtpark, Steirischer Herbst, Graz
For the hobbyist, kitbashing is a useful way
to save time which would otherwise be
spent scratchbuilding an entire model. For
professional special effects technicians,
commercial model kits are a ready source of ‚detailing‘, providing large amounts
of identical, mass-produced components
which can be used to add fine detail to an
existing model. Kitbashing is often done by
hobbyists to create a model of a subject,
real or imaginary, for which there currently
isn‘t a suitable commercially available kit.
Many of the spaceship models created for
the films 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star
Wars included details from tank, speedboat
and race car kits. Sometimes the source
kits are selected after carefully considering
the characteristics of the various models,
and sometimes the process is the simple
selection of a model that most closely resembles the desired outcome. While kitbashing is common among Sci-Fi modelers,
rearranging components from two-dimensional mediums(such as schematics of a
starship) is generally looked down upon as
showing a lack of creativity and effort. Professio-nal modelmakers often kitbash to
build up a supply of useful parts which are
then re-created with lightweight materals.
It is not uncommon for parts to have to be
cut or filed into an appropriate shape in order to fit, and sometimes parts leave gaps
that have to be filled with putty. Although
the resulting model often looks very unprofessional before painting, a careful paint job
can completely hide the process.
A match cut is a cut in film editing from one
scene to another, where the two camera
shots are linked visually or thematically.
This can be used to underline a connection
between two separate elements, or for purely visual reasons. In a match cut an object
or action shown in the first shot is repeated
in some fashion in the second shot; the objects may be the same, be similar, or have
similar shapes or uses. One of the most
famous match cuts is in Stanley Kubrick‘s
2001: A Space Odyssey. A primitive ape
discovers the use of bones as tools and
throws the bone into the air. When the bone
reaches its highest point, the shot cuts to
that of a similarly-shaped space craft floating through space.
Magrathea is a planet in The Hitchhiker‘s
Guide to the Galaxy whose inhabitants
built customized planets for tremendous
amounts of money, making Magrathea one
of the wealthiest planets in the galaxy.
When the great galactic stock market crash
occurred, the Magratheans went into hibernation awaiting the recovery of the economy to the point where their services could
once again be afforded. One of the chief
Magrathean planet designers is called Slartibartfast, and he designed the coastline of
Norway. (He enjoyed doing the crinkly bits
and fjords.)
Mattes are used in photography and filmmaking to insert part of a foreground image
onto a background image, which is often a
matte painting, a background filmed by the
second unit, or computer generated imagery. In modern use, the foreground element is
often also computer generated.The original
technique was to shoot an actor on a small
set through a hole in a sheet of transparent
glass or plastic plate bearing a painted
background. The camera would be carefully
positioned so that the background painted
on the plate would appear to blend with the
set as seen from the camera, giving the impression that the actor was in a large space
without having to actually build that space.
A miniature effect is a special effect generated by the use of scale models. Scale
models are often combined with high speed
photography to make gravitational and other
effects scale properly. Another form of miniature effect uses stop motion animation.
Modulation is the process of varying a carrier signal in order to use that signal to convey information. There are several reasons
to modulate a signal before transmission
in a medium. These include the ability of
different users sharing a medium (multiple
access), and making the signal properties
physically compatible with the propagation
medium. Modulation is performed to overcome signal transmission issues such as to
allow Multiplexing — the transmission of
multiple data signals in one frequency band,
on different carrier frequencies.
Nurnies are bits of detail on objects, usually
models, both physical and computer generated, of fictional technology, that serve no
real purpose other than to add complexity to
the object. The detail can be made from geometric primitives, including cylinders, cubes,
and rectangles, combined to create intricate,
but meaningless, surface detail. Nurnies are
commonly found on models or drawings of
fictional spacecraft in science-fiction.
A practical effect is a special effect in
which a prop object appears to work in a
situation where it obviously could not (such
as a ringing telephone on stage). No trick
photography or post-production editing
is involved. This type of effect is normally
found in live theatre. In film, the term practical effects is also used to denote those effects that are produced on-set, without the
aid of computer generated imagery. „Special effects“ is also usually considered to be
equivalent to practical effects, whereas „visual effects“ usually denotes those effects
produced in post-production with the aid of
a computer.
Retroscripting is a process in which a
script contains a plot outline and leaves
dialogue deliberately vague for interpretation by the actors through improvisation.
Retroscripting can add strong realism and
characterization to dialogue.
The Schüfftan process is a movie special effect widely used in the first half of
the 20th century before it was replaced
by the travelling matte and bluescreen effects. The process was designed by the
German cinematographer Eugen Schüfftan while working on the movie Metropolis.
Fritz Lang wanted to insert the actors into
miniatures of skyscrapers and other buildings, so Schüfftan used a specially-made
mirror to create the illusion of actors interacting with huge, realistic-looking sets.
- info from wikipedia, Dripsdrü und sonstwo
http://daegseingcny.net
http://manoafreeuniversity.org/howtodothingswithworlds
And probably a glossary is a model as well:
Kann man den Apparat überhaupt kritisch
lesen? Taucht man nicht ein in diese kleine,
andere Welt, die ja ohnehin auch schon die
eigene ist, und integriert sie und ihr Wissen,
fasziniert von der eigenen Unterdrückung,
gebannt auf ihre Mechanismen starrend?
Und wird das, was man einmal bekämpfen
wollte? Wie nutzt man das spielerische
Feuer, das ja schon selbst in ökonomische
Funktion gebracht wurde bis ins kleinste
Projekt, bis in die unbewussteste Synapse?
Wäre es nicht an der Zeit zu verweigern?
Sich ent-managen, sich desorganisieren
und dekolonisieren, desintegrieren? i.e.:
KANNST DU NEIN SAGEN?
Schüfftan placed a plate of glass at a forty-five-degree angle between the camera
and the miniature buildings. He used the
camera‘s viewfinder to trace an outline of
the area into which the actors would later
be inserted onto the glass. This outline was
transferred onto a mirror and all the reflective surface that fell outside the outline was
removed, leaving transparent glass. When
the mirror was placed in the same position
as the original plate of glass, the reflective
part blocked a portion of the miniature building behind it and also reflected the stage
behind the camera. The actors were placed
several metres away from the mirror so that
when they were reflected in the mirror, they
would appear at the right size. In the same
movie, Schüfftan used a variation of this
process so that the miniature set (or drawing) was shown on the reflective part of the
mirror and the actors were filmed through
the transparent part.
A screenplay or script is a blueprint for
producing a motion picture. It can be adapted from a previous work such as a novel,
play or short story, or it may be an original
work in and of itself. A screenplay differs
from a script in that it is more specifically
targeted at the visual, narrative arts, such
as film and television, whereas a script can
involve a blueprint of „what happens“ in a
comic, an advertisement, a theatrical play
and other „blueprinted“ creations. The major
components of a screenplay are action and
dialogue, with the „action“ being „what we
see happening“ and „dialogue“ being „what
the characters say“.
Als Set-Runner werden in der Filmindustrie Personen bezeichnet, die für kleine oder
große Hilfsaufgaben dem Drehteam flexibel
zur Verfügung stehen. In der Drehteamhierarchie ist Set-Running direkt der SetAufnahmeleitung untergeordnet und gehört in den organisatorischen Bereich der
Filmproduktion. Während der Dreharbeiten
müssen Set-Runner in Bereitschaft stehen,
um bei Bedarf unmittelbar einspringen zu
können. Sie stehen hierzu teils bis zu 24
Stunden in Funkkontakt mit der Set-Aufnahmeleitung. Set-Running ist nicht klar
als Beruf definiert und/oder anerkannt, es
gibt hierzu weder Schule, Ausbildung noch
Studium und wird (in Deutschland) meist
von PraktikantInnen oder StudentInnen
ausgeführt. Es ist ein nicht selten mental wie körperlich extrem aufreibender,
schlecht bis gar nicht bezahlter Job, aber
zum Funktionieren eines Drehs, egal wie
aufwändig dieser ist, existenziell wichtig
und wird trotz aller Anstrengung gerne und
oft als Quer-Einstiegshilfe ins Filmgeschäft
genutzt. Das übliche Einstiegsalter liegt
zwischen 18 und 25 Jahren.
Sound effects or audio effects are artificially created or enhanced sounds, or
sound processes used to emphasize artistic or other content of movies, video
games, music, or other media. In motion
picture and television production, a sound
effect is a sound recorded and presented
to make a specific storytelling or creative
point without the use of dialogue or music.
The term often refers to a process applied
to a recording, without necessarily referring
to the recording itself.
Special effects (SPFX or SFX) are used in
the film, television, and entertainment industry to visualize scenes that cannot be
achieved by normal means, such as space
travel. They are also used when creating
the effect by normal means is prohibitively
expensive, such as an enormous explosion.
They are also used to enhance previously
filmed elements, by adding, removing or
enhancing objects within the scene. Many
different visual special effects techniques
exist, ranging from traditional theater effects, through classic film techniques invented in the early 20th century, such as aerial
image photography and optical printers,
to modern computer graphics techniques
(CGI). Often several different techniques
are used together in a single scene or shot
to achieve the desired effect. Special effects are often „invisible.“ That is to say that
the audience is unaware that what they are
seeing is a special effect. This is often the
case in historical movies, where the architecture and other surroundings of previous
eras is created using special effects.
Texturen werden Im Bereich der Computergrafik als „Überzug“ für 3D-Modelle verwendet. Bei der 3D-Computer-Animation, bzw.
Visualisierung, Effekte, usw. bezeichnet
Textur das Bild, welches auf der Oberfläche
eines virtuellen Körpers dargestellt wird; man
spricht von Texture Mapping. Ein Pixel der
Textur wird als Texel bezeichnet. Dabei können Texturen praktisch jede Eigenschaft einer Oberfläche gezielt verändern. Der Vorteil
von Texturen im Vergleich mit Modellen liegt
darin, dass das Modellieren von Details sehr
aufwendig ist. Darüberhinaus braucht die
Darstellung von Modellen mehr Zeit und belegt Speicherplatz. Texturen schaffen dabei
Abhilfe, sprich Textur ersetzt Modellierung.
The idea of worlds within worlds was popularized by the Rutherford-Bohr model of the
atom as a tiny „solar system“ with electrons
orbiting the nucleus.It‘s a popular claim that
our entire universe to the farthest galaxy is
no more than a electron in a far grander universe we can never see. And every electron
in our universe is also an entire miniature
cosmos containing a yet smaller universe
– an infinite regression, up and down.
http://daegseingcny.net
http://manoafreeuniversity.org/howtodothingswithworlds
2006 -
Research series about models, various projects and works
Adopting J.L.Austin's influential Speech Acts theory (first published under the title How to Do
Things With Words), this ongoing series of works investigates the performative aspects of models:
Models are not only describing the world.
Through building, using or interpreting models we also ACT IN THE WORLD.
HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORLDS, 1
models and miniatures
Poster, s/w Offset, 42 x 48cm, 2006
Based on illustrations from the miniature book,
drawings in collaboration with a professional comic
artist.
Miniature book, ca.4 x 5cm, 2006
A research into the history of model-use, wrapped
inside a Science Fiction short story. Some characters
and plot elements are taken from SF short stories by
Philip K. Dick.
Published at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen.
2006 -
Research series about models, various projects and works
rdist arrangement of space, time and affects
space exploration
exploration
oded
Was this the real cause for the dead returning from
the grave to cannibalize on the flesh of the living?
Well, at least that is what we are lead to believe in
George A. Romero‘s classic Night of the Living Dead
from 1969.
Seven strangers find themselves in an isolated
farmhouse, boarding it up against the masses of the
undead, struggling with the horror that awaits them
on the outside –
troy them
notice
rtify the
p with
taken
go back in
Unfortunately, some time the boards were put
on backwards and that is when the numbers are
evident: The trick to keep the continuity consistent
in the viewer‘s eyes actually reveals the fragmented
production process. („They are dead... They‘re all
messed up.“)
Continuity is only a basic trick in film; but beyond
this film has become an enormously complex
production process. The organization of a 90
minutes feature film today envolves thousands of
people at work before the shooting, on the set, in
postproduction, marketing and distribution.
And the machinery is based on the dedication and
creativity of every single person involved in the
dream factory.
GLOSS-O-LA-LA-LA-RY
& models
film
(Fundstücke und Skizzen for the ontology of HOW TO DO THINGS WITH WORLDS)
Das Art Department ist verantwortlich für
die materielle Umsetzung einer Filmwelt.
Man unterscheidet darin Kostümbild und
Szenenbild. Unter der Leitung einer/s SzenenbilderIn arbeiten Location Scouts, AusstattungsassistentInnen, RequisiteurInnen,
Bauteams, GraphikerInnen, Set DresserInnen, usw.
Bigature was Weta Workshop‘s nickname
for the very large filming miniature models
used in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
The largest of them measured some 20
feet high. This use of large minatures was
also utilised in Peter Jackson and Weta‘s
next film, King Kong. Extensive computer
graphics techniques and computer controlled cameras were used to seamlessly meld
bigature photography with living actors.
The process of breaking down the script
occurs after the producer reads through
the screenplay once. Then he or she goes
back and marks certain elements that need
to be taken care of before production, or
even pre-production can begin.To ease future production, the producer marks the
elements found in each scene. This process
repeats for each new scene. By the end, the
producer will be able to see which scenes
need which elements, and can begin to
schedule accordingly.
Bullet time is a concept introduced in recent films and computer games whereby the
passage of time is displayed as extremely
slow or frozen moments in order to allow a
viewer to observe imperceptibly fast events
(such as flying bullets). It is often used to
create a dramatic effect, as in the film The
Matrix. The concept also implies that only
a „virtual camera,“ often illustrated within
the confines of a computer-generated environment such as a game or virtual reality,
would be capable of „filming“ bullet-time
types of moments. Technical and historical
variations of this effect have been referred
to as time slicing, view morphing, flo mo,
temps mort and virtual cinematography.
Antecedents to bullet time occurred before
the invention of cinema itself. Eadweard
Muybridge used still cameras placed along
a racetrack to take pictures of a galloping
horse. Muy-bridge later assembled the pictures into a rudimentary animation, by placing them on a glass disk which he spun in
front of a light source. In effect, Muybridge
had achieved the aesthetic opposite to The
Matrix‘s bullet-time sequences. In addition
to the multiple-cameras effect which captures the actors, the surrounding scenery in
The Matrix‘s bullet-time shots is a computer-generated rendering. The phrase „Bullet
Time,“ is a registered trademark of Warner
Bros., the distributor of The Matrix. It was
formerly a trademark of 3D Realms, producer of the Max Payne games.
In fiction, continuity is consistency of the
characteristics of persons, plot, objects,
places and events seen by the reader or viewer. It is of relevance to several media.
Continuity is particularly a concern in the
production of film and television due to the
difficulty of rectifying an error in continuity
after shooting has completed, although it
also applies to other art forms, including novels, comics and animation, though usually
on a much broader scale. Most productions
have a script supervisor (formerly „script
girl“) on hand whose job is solely to pay
attention to and attempt to maintain continuity across the chaotic and typically nonlinear production shoot. This takes the
form of a large amount of paperwork, photographs, and attention to and memory of
large quantities of detail. It usually regards
factors both within the scene and often
even technical details including meticulous
records of camera positioning and equipment settings. All of this is done so that
ideally all related shots can match, despite
perhaps parts being shot thousands of miles and several months apart. It is a less
conspicuous job, though, because if done
perfectly, no one will ever notice.
While most continuity errors are subtle,
such as changes in the level of drink in a
character‘s glass or the length of a cigarette, others can be more noticeable, such as
sudden drastic changes in appearance of a
character, or the unexplained appearance
of a character believed to be dead. Such
errors in continuity can ruin the illusion of
realism, and affect suspension of disbelief.
In cinema special attention must be paid to
continuity because films are rarely shot in
the order in which they are presented: that
is, a crew may film a scene from the end
of a movie first, followed by one from the
middle, and so on. The shooting schedule
is often dictated by financial and organizational issues.
Digital compositing is the process of assembling multiple images to make a final
image, typically for print, motion pictures or
screen display.
An extra is a performer in a film, television
show, or stage production who has no role
or purpose other than to appear in the background (for example, in an audience or busy
street scene). Extras often require little to
no acting experience, are hired en masse
with little formality, and usually paid at low
rates. War films and epic films often employ extras in large numbers: some movies
have featured hundreds or even thousands
of paid extras. On a movie set, film extras
are technically referred to as „Background
Action.“ In a stage production, extras are
commonly referred to as „supernumeraries.“ In television they are sometimes known
as „supporting artistes“ or „S.A.s“. Some
actors who became celebrities began their
careers as extras in other productions. (see
also: myths to keep the machine running)
A film crew is a group of people hired by a
film company for the purpose of producing
a film or motion picture. Crew are distinguished from cast, the actors who appear
in front of the camera or provide voices for
characters in the film. Crew are also separate from producers, those who own a portion of either the film company or the film‘s
intellectual property rights. A film crew is
divided into different departments, each of
which specializes in a specific aspect of the
production. These include the „front office“
staff such as the Production Manager, the
Production Coordinator, and their assistants; the accounting staff; the various
Assistant Directors; and sometimes the Locations Manager and his or her assistants. The
Director is considered to be a separate entity, not within the departmental structure.
Film production is the process by which a
motion picture film is created, from initial
development to distribution. The process
varies somewhat from country to country
and from production company to production company, particularly for independent
films. The stages include (very broadly):
Development: Script development, or
purchase of a screenplay - Rewriting the
screenplay (repeat) - Financing
Pre-production: Budgeting - Scheduling
- Casting - Rehearsals - Set construction Location scouting
Production: Principal photography In-camera special effects
Post-production: Film editing Visual effects - Musical scoring - Sound
editing -Sound effects
Distribution and Exhibition: Marketing Merchandising
In der Filmproduktion wird zwischen organisatorischer/wirtschaftlicher und kreativer
Tätigkeit unterschieden. Zu den organisatorisch/wirtschaftlichen Tätigkeiten zählen
z.B. Herstellungsleitung, Produktionsleitung, Aufnahmeleitung. Zu den kreativen
Tätigkeiten Regie, Kamera, Szenenbild, Kostüm, Maske, Ton, Schnitt etc. Die künstlerische (kreative) Leitung und Gesamtverantwortung trägt die Regie. Die wirtschaftliche
Verantwortung liegt bei dem Produzenten.
Produzent und Regie arbeiten (idealerweise)
eng zusammen, da es Aufgabe des Produzenten bzw. der Produktion ist, die Visionen
und Vorstellungen der Regie so weit wie finanziell, zeitlich etc. möglich umzusetzen.
Forced perspective is a filmmaking technique employed to make larger objects appear smaller to the viewer or vice versa, depending on their relationship to the camera
and each other. Forced perspective creates
an optical illusion, used primarily to make
objects appear far away when set space is
limited. Movies (especially B-movies) in the
50‘s and 60‘s are notorious for obvious and
poorly done forced perspective angles. Examples of forced perspective:
- Imagine a scene in an action/adventure
movie in which dinosaurs are threatening
the heroes. By placing a miniature model of
a dinosaur close to the camera (and possibly
making the model blurry), the dinosaur may
look monstrously tall to the viewer, even
though it is just closer to the camera.
- Imagine another scene in which two characters are supposed to be interacting in
the foreground of a vast cathedral. Instead
of actually filming in a cathedral, the director mounts a large painting of a cathedral‘s
interior in a studio and films the actors talking in front of the painting. This gives the
effect on film that the characters are in the
foreground of a large room, when in reality
they are standing next to a flat surface.
A greeble is a small piece of detailing added to break up the surface of an object to
add visual interest to a surface or object,
particularly in movie special effects. The
first recorded use of the term was by those
working on the special effects for Star Wars
They also described this design method as
„guts on the outside“. In physical models,
these greebles could be anything from
parts of plastic cut to an interesting shape,
or actual elements taken from shop bought
model kits. An anecdote from the creation
of the first Star Wars movie involves the
Tunisian customs enquiring what part of
the costume of C-3PO - listed as „assorted
greebles“ was. Their response was allegedly
„Something that looks cool but doesn‘t actually do anything.“ In 3D computer graphics,
greebles are often created automatically
by specific software, because generating
greeble involves a lot of precise, tedious,
and repetitive work, and many consider it a
task best suited to computers, particularly if
a great degree of control is unnecessary or
the greebles will not be particularly large on
screen. Most greeble generating software
works by sub-dividing the surface to be
greebled into smaller regions, adding some
detail to each new surface, and then recursively continuing this process on each new
surface to some specified level of detail.
A jump cut is a cut in film editing where the
middle section of a continuous shot is removed, and the beginning and ends of the shot
are then joined together. They usually occur
within static shots. The technique breaks
continuity in time and produces a startling
effect. Any moving objects in the shot will
appear to jump to a new position. An example, which is frequently used in old silent
films, is when a magician is making a lady
disappear. Jump cuts are generally either a
technical flaw, or done for an artistic special
effect — most normal cuts in film editing
occur between dissimilar scenes or significantly different views of the same scene
to avoid the appearance of a jump. Classical
continuity editing would view a jump cut as
an error. After Sergei Eisenstein, the jump
cut has sometimes served a political use
in film. It is one of the cuts used in intellectual montage. It is used as an alienating
Brechtian technique (the verfremdungseffekt) that made the audience aware of the
unreality of the film experience. This could
be used to focus their attention on the political message of a film rather than the drama or emotion of the narrative.
Kitbashing is a practice in which a new
scale model is created by combining elements from existing, commercially-available
model kits; these elements may be added
to an existing base, or to each other. Both
hobbyists and commercial modelmakers do
this; in the latter case, it is particularly popular for creating concept models, and also
for detailing motion picture special effects.
Poster, s/w Offset, 42 x 48cm, 2006 (detail)
Storyboard for a fictitious documentary about
models and film production
s the moon
tudio set
One of the photos that is frequently put forward as
evidence shows a lunar rock with something like a
letter on it, resembling props at film sets that are
numbered to keep track of them.
Putting lunatic conspiracies aside, Apollo was
definitely the vastest engineering endeaveour
of the 20th century, and one of the greatest
ideological and economical projects, at that.
A whole range of new management and
coordination procedures for big scale projects had
to be developed within just one decade to organize
a workforce of hundred of thousands of people and
their collective desire of landing a man on the moon.
elines
apitalist
al up to
cessing
the Apollo
oject ever.
There are many false myths about space-born
technologies in everyday life, like the teflon pan. In
reality no space probe has returned yet from even
our closest planetary neighbours, Venus or Mars. All
we have received from landers are digital images of
deserted landscapes, hostile to every form of life.
Still, some of the structural narratives of the Space
Age have effectively become part of today‘s world,
sneaking into every single moment of our lives,
shaping our experiences, messing with our desires,
manipulating life-time.
Today, various critical positions detect a
turning point within capitalism: its imperatives
start to infiltrate levels of the subject formerly
unimaginable. (A bit like a virus.)
...We‘re all messed up.
daegseingcny 2006 Ralo Mayer Illustrations: Martin Udovicic http://daegseingcny.net http://manoafreeuniversity.org/howtodothingswithworlds
Settings 2007-2009 (installation detail)
Solo exhibition at Galerie 5020, Salzburg, 2006
(Zombie-) Film production and the lunar landings as
models of post-Fordist production – an exhibion as
walk-through documentary film about models and
staging.
Das Problem der Handslungsreisenden
Performance, dietheater, Vienna, 2006/07
(with Philipp Haupt, Katharina Morawek a.o.)
Via wireless headphones the audience is guided
through the production of a fictitious TV-documentary on logistics and optimization processes. The topic
of the documentary is reflected through the production conditions in the TV-studio and theatre itself.
Manoa Free University
2003-2008
Self-organized Free University in Vienna, various projects & collaborations
We started our own Free University after experiencing the neoliberal transformation of the
university system and learning about historic examples of self-organized anti-institutions.
In several projects the MFU investigated the role of knowledge in today's society,
especially in three contexts: postfordist economy, education and artistic practices.
W...WirWissen, exhibition & conference, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, 2005
Gathering strategies of collaborative knowledge production, the exhibition was
a focal point of a growing international exchange between self-institutions in the
field of art and culture.
The figure of theatre was used for such a - inherently paradox - representation
of informal learning and unlearning: performative research, a rehearsal stage of
a production without premiere. Over the course of the exhibition weekly events,
lectures and workshops were organized.
Out of Business, Poster, 2006 (Detail)
Publication in celebration of SelfDecolonizing and the “Lost Colony”
(Heterotopology, ehem.), Vienna, 2005
Our effort to renovate a space located in an abandoned old university building in
Vienna and organize a self-teaching series and lectures about heterotopias.
The project received an award from “Utopie:Freiheit” in 2005.
GOTHENBURG N.B.
2002-2005
Single channel video, installation, publications, performance
Gothenburg N.B. is based on numerous interviews with activists protesting at the EU-Summit in
Gothenburg 2001 and court materials used against them in trials after the ensuing riots.
These contemporary social struggles are put in contrast with Situationist ideas from
the 1960s and specifically Constant's utopia of “New Babylon”. The striking semblances of
visual materials and slogans from both reveals only more harshly the actual differences and how
post-Fordist caopitalism has fully integrated once liberating ideas.
LIMES: bioborder/park/spektakel
2001
Film essay, DV-Pal, 23 min., german/engl.
Through a series of tableaux the film explores a specific landscape at the Austrian border to Hungary, where the protection of
“nature” and the European fortification against migrants blend
into a peculiar narrative.
While its praised ecological variety is conserved in a National Park, at
the time of filming the region also demarcated the Eastern border of the
EU-Schengen Treaty.
After the Fall of the Iron Curtain the Austrian army immediately began
patrolling the border in its so-called “Aktion Limes”. The rituals of protecting nature and nation, local history and ecology all but conceal the
global dimension of the local border. Nature provides an innocent raw
material for this engineering of “natural borders”.
Employing and deconstructing idyllic landscape imagery, the film is a
document of a specific historic moment after 1989.
Festivals & Screenings (selection)
Diagonale, Festival des österr. Films
Duisburger Filmwoche
Dokumentarfilm- & Videofest Kassel
Visions du Reel - Festival Int. du Cinéma Documentaire, Nyon
Werkleitz Biennale
Impakt, Utrecht
TIDF Taiwan Int. Documentary Festival, Taipei
border sounds
2001 / 2005
Audio Piece for OE1-Radio and online-publication (with wr)
http://www.kunstradio.at/2001B/16_09_01.html
http://www.publicrec.org/archive/2-02/2-02-005/2-02-005.html
“border sounds” traces our efforts to map the Eastern perimeter of the EU border as
it existed in the summer of 2001. Composed from field recordings and interviews, the sound
piece forces the larger question of how soundscapes might resist a “Beautiful World” tendency
to inform and interrogate political process.

Ralo Mayer

Transcription

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