“Visitors” International Video Art Activity

Exhibition: 14-15 May 2010

Curator: Şinasi GüneşAssistant Curator: Özgen Yıldırım

Participating Artists:Tintin Cooper (UK) Alamtini 02.24Agricola de Cologne (Germany) Orfeo Negro 4:20
Deng Da Fei (Chine) China Astronaut 07:26
Werther Germondari (Italy) Office 03:15
Silvio Javier De Gracia (Arjantine) Ego 00:45Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koperl (Germany) Metro Mexico 02:40
Alberto Magrin (Italy) Mary's House 03:00
Gruppo Sinestetico (Italy) Cencored 02:30
Jerome Symons (Netherlands) How can I forget you? 03:00
Andres Weberg (Sweden) For Sore Eyes 02:17
Niki Sehmi (UK) Desecration 03:08Şinasi Güneş (Turkey) Gicir 03:03
Exhibition Place: Erkan Yavuz Experimental Art Workshop (Municipal Center) /Canakkale-TurkeyExhibition Hours: 07.00-08.30 PM
sinasig@gmail.com
http://visitors-videoart.blogspot.com/
http://www.canakkale2010.org/
On the “Visitors” International Video Art Activity
Sinasi Gunes
While many projects are implemented in the context of Cultural Capital Istanbul 2010, within the series of activities "Canakkale 2010" as parallel are organized within the various projects. With me as curator, one of that projects of “Visitors” international video art activity took place in the Erkan Yavuz Experimental Art Workshop between May 14 to 15. As a result of meticulous working of my assistant Ozgen Yildirim and me together was predetermined 12 video art works of 15 artist from Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, China, Argentina and Sweden. Preparing this selection, mainly prefered the performance videos. The aim was to create an energetic atmosphere of performance art to move the driving force of art and its exciting.
“Visitors” International Video Art Activity contains the works of 12 video artists: Agricola de Cologne, Alberto Magrin, Anders Weberg, Deng Da Fei, Gruppo Sinestetico, Jerome Symons, Niki Sehmi, Silvio De Gracia, Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koperl, Tintin Cooper, Sinasi Gunes and Werther Germondari.
Agricola de Cologne re-interpreties “Black Orfe” as a film of the classic fantasy cinema production of 1959, with which simultaneous streaming video work consisting of two different images. That film is characterized as an example of a revolutionary cinema because of acting only blacks in time, it takes place in a world of contemporary art with adapted to new form.
Yet another Italian artist Alberto Magrin’s the title of the video which “Mary’s House” is probably the most simple and romantic video of the activity. Accompanied by a romantic music, the figure of a man who is trying to reach towards the island but floating in the same place is nearly fascinates to audiences.
Swedish Artist Anders Weberg describes underwater as an area of applied the gender and patriarchal. It is a death to stay underwater for woman, trying to breathe is a step for the freedom. Artist, creates a very strong aesthetic images, while she uses the female body under the water between life and death.
Chinese artist Deng Da Fei who uses his legs is pushing the plush ball backwards in the “China Astronaut” performance video. Artist continues this difficult march in the town square for minutes.
Italian Gruppo Sinestetico consists of 3 artists are censoring expressions and act of living in their performance video which will be exhibited in “Visitors”. They criticize the censors who are not afraid of anything other than their own desire and trying to control the perception. They censored themselves therefore they empty inside of meaning.
Dutch artist Jerome Symons reftlects to the feelings of separation and love between two lovers with the image of woman who is painting her face in advertising boards. As the man tries to forget the pain of separation, it is slapped to him was reflected the lover's face in advertising images. In the background, flowing in the same rhythm of the heartbeat is indication of life continues.
British artist Niki Sehmi is displayed 2 balloons in which filled the water constantly moving with a knife which is directed to help the aparatus. In this view, it is revealed psychological dimension of the relationship between the attacker and the victim. Victims are in a passive resistance. Result of the attack is certain, it is inevitable. In his perfotmance video,
Argentine artist Silvio De Gracia is inflating a balloon on which writing “ego” and then it bursted. Artist refers to factors of realizing the ego satisfaction with blowing breath into the balloon while he identified with human ego to inflated a balloon.
Duo of German artists Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koeperl is known making their performance videos over many parts of the world. Artists give people 5 peso in subway in Sylvia Winkler & Stephan Koeperl’s “Metro Mexico” . Artists reverse perception of giving money in daily life.
It is possible to see traces of the ongoing conceptual art in Sinasi Gunes’s video. Guitar is cleaned with a cloth. It is discovered musical sound when the guitar is cleaned. Cleaning action as an routine of everyday life is transformed to an artistic performance by artist. The cloth looks like a guitar plectrum.British artist
Tintin Cooper refers to Middle East culture with ironically direction in charcoal hand drawn animation. Arabesque music has been used here as a conjunction.
In him“Office” performance study, Italian artist Werther Germondari gets to the camera constantly rotating on chair to him and chair's legs, he is taken to the camera himself at the same time. It is observed to observer and obsevation thing together in this video.
"Visitors” International Video Art Activity will be criticism occasion the Turkish video art compared with external world productions, video art products in the outside world by providing access to Canakkale art audience in common creating a serious contribution in the context of video art. Sinasi Gunes
“Visitors” International Video Art ActivityThe artists visit to Canakkale with Video-art Works, they make a mark on the city's cultural fabric a lot. Each of the one changes there, makes it different, resident perceptions undermine and opens the door to a new dialogue. International artists produced all work/video in own culture and they pass from inside the door of dialogue. Memory of this encounter with visitors is an important step on behalf of fusion and with coming together other cultures to culture of the city.

Tintin Cooper

Tintin CooperLives and works in London / Bangkok

Tintin Cooper is an artist of Thai and English parentage who graduated from the Slade School of Fine Art in London in 2004. She makes videos and large mixed-media installations. Her installations entirely reconstruct our relationship to space; in 2007 she created an enormous ‘slum’ in Bangkok’s PSG Gallery – a solo show following an artist residency at Silpakorn University. She has also appropriated footage from Hollywood movies in her video works in order to deconstruct ideologies of war and heroism.
Recent group shows include 'More to Love' a travelling exhibition by ArtAids (Bangkok, ChiangMai, Barcelona), ‘Lifeboat 2551’, Sydney Biennale 2008 Projects, ‘Face to Faces’ (Mois de la Photo’), Transmediale Festival (Berlin 2008) and Tate Britain (London 2008) alongside London-based art collective 'Wowow!'
In Bangkok she has organised exhibitions with international artists at Conference of Birds Gallery, an independent gallery set up with writer Andrews Little, as well as writing reviews and lecturing at Mahidol, Chulalongkorn and Silpakorn universities. She is currently the receipient of an AHRC award for research at the Slade School of Fine Art.

'Alamtini'
2004 02:30 DVD

'Alamtini' charcoal hand drawn animation.
'Alamtini' is a simple stop motion animation piece made using charcoal drawings, inspired from the artist's numerous visits to Istanbul.

Silvio De Gracia

Silvio De Gracia
Born in Argentina (1973).

Junín, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is professor of History and Socials Sciences. He is writer, visual artist, performer, video artist and independent curator. Since 1996, he has been directing Ediciones El Candirú, which has published several books and magazines on experimental art. At present, he directs and edits the international magazine of mail art and visual poetry HOTEL DaDA. His theory production includes articles and essays that have been published in specialized magazines and in different websites. He is author of the book “Aesthetic of disquietude”, a theoretical text about the interferencia, his innovative concept of performance art in Latin America. He is organizer, theoretical and researcher of performance art.
He is organizer and founder of International Video Art Festival PLAY, in Argentina.
Founder of HOTEL DaDA Action Art Group and director of VIDEOPLAY Project, a curatorial instance of interchange with festivals and events devoted to the diffusion of video art and action art.
He is member of International Staff of Canadian magazine Inter art actuel.

http://www.playfestival.com.ar/

Ego

2008 43 DV

A playful and ironic exercise about the elimination of the ego.

Niki Sehmi

Niki Sehmi
London, United Kingdom

Profession:
Freelance Flash Developer (Games, Web, 3D)

Education:
Central St Martins College of Art & Design
MA , Fine Art , 1998 – 2000
Staffordshire University
BA , Fine Art , 1995 - 1998

http://www.nikart.co.uk/

Desecration1998 03:08 DVD

The assailant begins well poised for the act. There is a transformation from total control to the ridiculous and then desperation. The observer is unfortunately encouraging the inevitable rather than offering salvation.

Agricola de Cologne

Agricola de Cologne
I was born in 1950 in Black Forest (Southern Germany)

independant media artist, New Media curator and founder of [NewMediaArtProjectNetwork] - the experimental platform for art and New Media - operating from Cologne/Germany

Studies
1969-1991 Stuttgart State Academy of Fine Arts
1971-1974 Munich University
1974-1978 Rijksakademie Amsterdam
Since 1989, the artist realized several collaborative and media related art works
1989-1993 Founder of ARCHA Society Foundation- a temporary non -profit organization/cultural exchange between Western and eastern Europe
As the director of ARCHA, Agricola organized several international conferences and cultural projects in Germany and Poland.
Since 1994 working with New Media
Between 1995 and 1999 realisation of the Memorial Project

[R][R][F] Festival

www.newmediafest.org/rrf/
Agricola de Cologne site
http://www.agricola-de-cologne.de/blog/
Orfeo Negro
2006 04:20 DVD , miniDV

Filmed on the performance festival Interferencias in Junin-Buenos Aires/Argentina and Retiro railway station Buenos Aires in 2005, the video takes a performance by the Argentine artist Vera Baxter as the basis for a contemporary interpretation of the “classical” ORFEO NEGRO”, which is converting the film document not only to a metaphor for the artistic process of an action, but also to a new artwork.

Alberto Magrin

Alberto MagrinAlberto Magrin was born on Dec 29th 1970 in Rapallo (Genoa-Italy).

He studied architecture at Genoa University.
He won a study grant with the sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro at Urbino University and later began a theatrical experience. He received the prize Libertas for visual art and literature from Honorable Ferri, Member of the European Parliament near Italian Academy "Gli Etruschi" and in Turin collaborated to the foundation of the Scientific Association Gustavo Adolf Rol with the aim to demonstrate the victory of the man over the time through the individual attitude of the spirit. In the meantime he has been awarded with the title of Associated Academic of Verbano by the International Academy Greci-Marino for the letters, arts and sciences. He founds the Cultural Association of Digital Art "Onda". 2007 International Prize of Literature and Poetry "New Letters" from the Italian Institute of Culture in Naples.
With a series of donations he made a proper world net of gallery denominated by him self “Magreen Gallery” which is a work of art, are really located in a public situation in which case eliminate every source of gesture and control in there personal work.
Prevision and symbol of “eternal nothingness” of this project which represents the falling and the rebirth of the modern era.

http://www.magrin.it/

Mary's House
2001 Digital video 3,00 min.

God is water, Mary swims in the water. Symbol of the immovable motor, the heart.

Anders Weberg

Anders Weberg
(b.1968) Sweden

Anders is an artist and filmmaker working in video, sound, new media and installations and he is primarily concerned with identity. The human body
lies at the root of projects that formally and conceptually chart identity and its construction as a preamble to broaching matters of violence, genders,
memory, loss or ideology in which personal experiences co-exists with references to popular culture, the media and consumerism. Specializing in
digital technologies, he aims to mix genres and ways of expression to explore the potential of audio visual media.
He coined the term Peer-to-peer art or (p2p art) in 2006. Art made for - and only available on - the peer to peer networks. The original artwork is first
shared by the artist until one other user has downloaded it. After that the artwork will be available for as long as other users share it. The original file
and all the material used to create it are deleted by the artist. ”There’s no original”. Six films with a duration between 45 minutes and 9 hours have
been uploaded on the file sharing networks in one copy and their original have been deleted. P2P Art - The aesthetics of ephemerality.

http://www.recycled.se/
http://vimeo.com/weberg

“For Sore Eyes”
2006 0:02:17 DVD

“For Sore Eyes” is another exploration of the ambivalence of the male gaze and gendered (dis)order.
It is a suggestive reflection of life in the pyrotechnic in sanatorium of consumerism freedom.
But what is really freedom?
"For Sore Eyes" est une autre exploration de l'ambivalente contemplation masculine et du (dés)ordre qu’elle engendre. C'est une réflexion
suggestive sur la vie dans le sanatorium pyrotechnique de la liberté consumériste. Mais qu’est-ce que la liberté, réellement ?

Deng Da Fei

Deng Da Fei
I was born in 1975 in jinzhou liaoning Province China . Bachelor graduated from Northeast teacher university , art education major postgraduate graduated from china academy of fine art , total art major.

“China Astronaut”
2004 07:26 DVD

This is the first time to try to record video behavior. Wearing a space suit “future austronaut” and appeared in Hangzhou in all representative of public space, the back facing the plush ball doing simulation dung betle movement. I have created a fantastic visual image to appear in the seemingly normal social order, the stable life to bring a circle of ripples.

Jerome Symons

Jerome Symons(born 1949) Netherlands
sculpture, video, installations.
partner in WISEGUYS urban art projects
(consultants public art, Amsterdam)

http://www.jeromesymons.com/

How Can I Forget You?
2005 03:00 DVD

Two lovers have separated. He is
seeing her face on all the
advertising screens in the city,
while he is trying to erase her
face from his mind.

Sylvia Winkler& Stephan Köperl

Sylvia Winkler
5th Dec 1969
Austrian
State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart /Scholarships for Italy and Budapest /Long term stay in P.R.China /lives in Stuttgart and Salzburg

Stephan Koperl
22nd June 1966
German
Apprenticeship in telecommunication /Civil service in a kindergarten /State Academy of Fine Arts, Stuttgart in the class of Henk Visch and Joseph Kosuth /DAAD Scholarship for P.R.China /Post-graduate Scholarship for Japan During a two-month stay in Budapest we bought a bunch of flow-ers every day. Fearing that the chambermaid could dissoive our collection, we posted a note on the windowsill

http://www.winkler-koeperl.net/

Metro México
2003 02:27 DVD

In the metro we often see itinerant traders getting on, who loudly offer goods of daily need for sale or tell their stories, begging for some money afterwards.
In order to give this situation a different meaning we try to reverse the way of the money from the passenger to the »ambulante«:
Dear ladies and gentlemen,
I am an artist from Europe and thanks to a scholarship I have the opportunity of living in Mexico-City for six months. I like the city very much and so far I have only had good experiences with the people.
That’s why I want to return something.
Please accept these five pesos. Only five pesos!

Werther Germondari

Werther Germondari
Rimini, Italy, 1963

Graduated in Art & Performance at the Bologna University and at the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia in Rome. Interested in innovative experimental dynamics that are neo-conceptual and situational, characterized by a taste for the ironic and surreal, Germondari has experimented for 25 years through many different expressive media (from painting to installations, photography to film, videos to performance). He has been invited to participate in many important international group shows and his works have also been shown in solo exhibitions, where he focuses on hidden elements highlighted in styles.

www.werthergermondari.com

Office
2004 03:15 DVD

"Bending down on himself, wearing a traditional working suit (not as ambitious as that of a white collar) Werther Germondari begins a sterile working circle/circuit miming an empty and repetitive work action. Sterile the worker, sterile the operator (...) . Using a rhyme game, close to the irony hidden within the linguistic references and double meanings of Germondari, we could define “tragic” the story around which the character in OFFICE revolves. Loving repetitive performances, the artist stages the physical and mental constraint of a situation that finds the reaffirmation of its identity, within its total vacuity and social acknowledgement". (Federica La Paglia)

Gruppo Sinestetico

Gruppo Sinestetico
Lives and works in Padova in Italy.

The Gruppo Sinestetico was founded in 1999 and includes the artists Matteo Albertin, Antonio Sassu and Gianluca Scordo.
proposes itself in a "synesthetic" way, using and raising the sinestesia in art, in performance, in action, in image, and in contact/contagion, using video, photo and video-installation.
Our manifesto (1999, year of foundation) has a precise perspective and a focusing vision of the purpose to express ourselves in a "synesthetic" way, with the involvement of all five senses, and obviously also the sixth one... Therefore, here’s the job of the group: we introduce and we compare the man and his/her daily life, exalting virtues or reporting abuses and overbearingness.
This video performance “Anche le Parole Uccidono” (“Words can kill") faces the problem of the use of words. Through the visual poetry we introduce a message that has two interpretations: war and death. The "decisional” word in this

http://www.grupposinestetico.it/

Censored
2007 02:30 DVD

The distinction between a government censor and a private one is not always clear. Many private entities receive governmental support through funding and other means. With such support often comes some degree of governmental oversight or control.
Art is supposed to be the expression of feelings, the visual representation of what the artist is feeling or trying to show. All people need to have the freedom to express opinions and feelings to the extent that is acceptable, but who is to say what is acceptable? The public should have a choice in deciding whether to view the resulting content. Censorship is always a very blunt tool.
Today, some artists can only choose to censor themselves if they really want to be free.
Art represents a person’s identity. In such cases self-censure is the only identity left to artists.

Şinasi Güneş

Şinasi GüneşTurkey
I was borned in 1968. I live and work in Istanbul.I have graduated of Fine Art Faculty, University of Marmara. My works across different disciplines such as installation, painting, video art, mail art, street art, sculpture, photography and conceptual art. Actively I am exhibiting my works in international, national, and regional museums and galleries, I also curated audio-video art festival "Obsession" in 2005.

www.simulasyon.net
www.simulation-simulation.blogspot.com
www.sinasivideo-art.blogspot.com
Gicir
2006 03:03 DVD

The artist is turning a basic action of cleaning his guitar into a heareble performance.
He is showing the invisible visions in an ironic way.