«Mapping New Territories», Knowbotic Research, naked bandit/here, not here/white sovereign, 2005. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen.
«Mapping New Territories», exhibition view, 2005. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen.
«Mapping New Territories», Marlene McCarty, Bad Blood, Stage 2, 2005. Photo: Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen.
Knowbotic Research, Marlene Mccarty, 56Ktv-Bastard Channel, N3Krozoft Mord
MAPPING NEW TERRITORIES – Schweizer Medienkunst International
30 January–27 March 2005
The Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen, in cooperation with the Federal Department of Culture/sitemapping.ch and the Basel based media-art institution [plug.in], presents four contemporary media art projects. Installations and Performances discover new territories in exhibition space. As an accompaniment to the exhibition, the Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen is organising the symposium «Mapping New Territories» with internationally known speakers.
With the interactive installation naked bandit/here, not here/white sovereign the artist group Knowbotic Research thematicizes topics of power and its field of activity. A floating robot can be animated by visitors to travel towards free-floating black balloons placed in a restricted space. The balloons are analogous to imprisoned suspected terrorists, whose legal status within certain territories is not clear. Like the arrested, they are completely dependant on the arbitrary mercy of others.
A insight into the identity of a young woman is offered in Marlene McCarty's interactive installation BAD BLOOD Stage Two. In the 1970s, Marlene Olive was featured in headlines in the press due to a violent crime. She tried to retreat from her parental environment through drugs, sex and music. This supposed process of liberation finally ended up in the murder of her own mother. In McCarty's installation, a sexily dressed young woman on a screen interacts with the visitors entering the space, by responding to their movements. The artist thereby generates observing subjects who must position themselves in relationship to the protagonist.
While more and more deadly similar reality-shows and other entertainment programmes flicker across the TV screen, the Pro Helvetia and xcult project 56kTV Bastard channel goes on air on the world-wide web with its own program. This symbiotic bonding of a TV and an internet project deliberately instrumentalises the web, counting on world-wide artistic support (Basel, Berlin, Johannesburg, New York, Seoul, Tokyo, etc.). Moreover, the installation 56kTV Bastard channel calls for personal program design, demonstrating an alternative configuration of the TV-world.
sitemapping.ch
The Federal Office of Culture (BAK) has set itself, within its funding policy task for new media, the target of creating a new basis of discourse for media arts through the initiative sitemapping.ch . Its goal is to position media art within the context of conventional contemporary art and to instigate a serious art historical discourse. This initiative of BAK wishes to support, strengthen and facilitate the general conditions of public presentation for conceptual artists who recognize the computer as an aesthetic tool in an ever-more networked world, rather than simply as a technically fascinating medium.
[plug.in]
[plug.in] is the single institution in Switzerland producing and exhibiting media arts year round. Whenever possible, it supports the Swiss media art scene beyond regional and national borders striving in particular to engender international networking. The Basel-based institution opened in December 2000 as an international and regional location for media art and has been extensively funded by municipalities.
Funded by sitemapping.ch, Swiss Federal Office of Culture, in cooperation with [plug.in]
With the generous support of IBM (Schweiz) AG Zürich, PanGas St. Gallen, Idyllhotel Appenzellerhof Speicher AR and R+R Sonic Design AG.
in collaboration with Textilmuseum