2019
come closer: gemini exit (beeny's retirement)
OUDE KERK, Amsterdam, NL
VIDEO---------------
"Plenty who are not experts comfortably characterise a Gemini." Astrological charts are discarded, used, embraced like other technologies. A label is worn with a set of limits. NASA states that Project Gemini (1961-66) was thus named for the two men who would fit in the capsule, attempting space walks and docking, always recording the results. The gesture of alienating and forcing the position of not knowing, a system for deluding expertise, is at the core of this iteration of Come Closer, echoing ‘The Instrument Of Troubled Dreams’, a site-specific installation by Janet Cardiff (1957) and George Bures Miller (1960) that was composed in and around the Oude Kerk.
GEMINI EXIT (Beeny's Retirement) was a situation for camera by Ivan Cheng focusing on agency without authorship. It featured new sculptures by Kristoffer Zeiner that were cast in the role of 'Beeny', and improvising pianist Marta Warelis playing the Transept organ of the church. Playing on the role of compression, the 'public' were invited to use their own headphones and electronic devices to stream audio files prepared by Cheng, containing texts and audio that offered an alternate accompaniment or sonic proximity to the live action. Respondents to an open call took featured but ambiguous roles in the work. The complicity in the act of mediating this content was voluntary, with the role of the live witness and their recording device is given equal emphasis.
..with Dagmar Bosma, Ivan Cheng, Jacob Dwyer (Canon HF10), Sandy Harry Ceesay, Fán Liào (Sony A7S II), Yunfei Ren (Sony A7S II), Nolwenn Salaün (Nikon D3200), Natalia Salloum, Sophie de Serriere, Kristoffer Zeiner'
Contraband' is a video composed of materials from GEMINI EXIT beeny's retirement, edited by Ivan Cheng.
GEMINI EXIT (Beeny's Retirement) was a situation for camera by Ivan Cheng focusing on agency without authorship. It featured new sculptures by Kristoffer Zeiner that were cast in the role of 'Beeny', and improvising pianist Marta Warelis playing the Transept organ of the church. Playing on the role of compression, the 'public' were invited to use their own headphones and electronic devices to stream audio files prepared by Cheng, containing texts and audio that offered an alternate accompaniment or sonic proximity to the live action. Respondents to an open call took featured but ambiguous roles in the work. The complicity in the act of mediating this content was voluntary, with the role of the live witness and their recording device is given equal emphasis.
..with Dagmar Bosma, Ivan Cheng, Jacob Dwyer (Canon HF10), Sandy Harry Ceesay, Fán Liào (Sony A7S II), Yunfei Ren (Sony A7S II), Nolwenn Salaün (Nikon D3200), Natalia Salloum, Sophie de Serriere, Kristoffer Zeiner'
Contraband' is a video composed of materials from GEMINI EXIT beeny's retirement, edited by Ivan Cheng.