June 21, 7 pm

Video Screening

With comments by the artists/producers

-

Phil Collins, how to make a refugee
Carola Dertnig, a room with a view in the financial district
Kanak TV, 40 Jahre Einwanderung / Weißes Ghetto
Jun Yang, Camouflage. LOOK like them TALK like them

<b>Phil Collins</b>
how to make a refugee

1999 | Single–channel colour video projection with sound |12 min

In “how to make a refugee” Phil Collins reveals the imbalance of power embedded in relations of looking. In this piece, Collins films a Kosovan Albanian family who are victims of the war in former Yugoslavia. They are being photographed here by the media for a lifestyle magazine. A young boy is asked to remove his shirt to expose scars from bullet wounds; his expression is one of detached discomfort and embarrassment. Those doing ‘the looking’ have the power while those being ‘looked at’ become the object of the former’s gaze. As an uneasy viewer, we are implicated in this objectification and voyeurism. The video work exposes media manipulation of displaced people during the NATO campaign in Kosovo. The journalists’ own agenda takes precedence over the refugees’ plight and what begins as a complicated human situation is transformed into a flat and frozen image. It makes for uncomfortable but compelling viewing, powerfully telling a story without any sensitivity to the ongoing reality of the subjects’ lives.

Phil Collins, born 1970 in Runcorn, England, lives in Glasgow. Solo exhibitions: Ausstellungshalle zeitgenössische Kunst, Münster (2007); „Forum 59: Phil Collins“, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2007); „New Work: Phil Collins“, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2006), „erreala denaren itzulera/el retorno de lo real“, Sala Rekalde, Bilbao (2006); „and they shoot horses“, Tate Britain, London (2006-07). Group exhibitions:„War and Discontent“, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2007); „a forest and a tree“, Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna (2007); „Turbulence“, 3rd Auckland Triennial, Auckland Art Gallery (2007); „Turner Prize 2006“, Tate Britain, London (2006); „British Art Show 6“, National Touring Exhibition (2005–06); 9th International Istanbul Biennial (2005); and „Belonging“, 7th Sharjah International Art Biennial, Sharjah Art Museum & Expo Centre (2005).

<b>Carola Dertnig</b>
a room with a view in the financial district
2003 | video | 5 min

The images of this work, made in June 2001, are talking about several months the artist spent working in the World Trade Center in New York. Invited to join other artists in setting up a studio on an empty floor as part of an artist-in-residence program, Carola Dertnig discovered a number of empty rooms during her excursions in both towers. The video documents these discoveries in the form of frozen moments showing abandoned architectures with traces of a working environment. These pictures, shot with the photo button of a video camera, show worn or decaying relics of wired (dot.com) offices; capacious empty spaces, their ceilings, floors and walls falling apart; discarded work clothes; and the debris of meetings, lunches and coffee breaks. Dertnig combined these clear shots, which play with the format commonly used in documentary photography, with a first-person off-camera narration. Observations concerning economic structures and the circumstances of personal lives, artistic production and financial power, surveillance methods and empty spaces which are both mobile and available flow together in a circling.
(Text: Rike Frank; Translation: Steve Wilder)

Carola Dertnig, born in Innsbruck, lives in Vienna. Solo exhibitions: Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck (2006); Galerie Andreas Huber, Vienna (2005); Secession, Vienna (2004); Kunstverein Salzburg (2003); Group shows: “Why Pictures Now“, Mumok, Vienna (2006); “Wild Walls New York”, Artists Space, New York (2005); “After the Act”, Momok, Vienna (2005); “ongoing feminism”, Galerie 5020, Salzburg (2005); “World Views”, New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York (2001).

<b>Kanak TV</b>

Philharmonie Köln – 40 Jahre Einwanderung
2001 | DVD | 9 min

Cologne, 6.11. 2001. The city of Cologne celebrates the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Labour Recruitment Agreement with Turkey. Accordingly, many prominent people appeared for the ceremony in the Philharmonic Hall. Even the mayor was there. Naturally, as befits the occasion, we only pursued white exotics with the camera.

Weißes Ghetto
2002 | DVD | 8 min

Köln-Lindenthal is a prosperous and homogenous district. You will look for migrants there in vain. Which poses the question as to what that has to do with. Are the Germans cutting themselves off? Is Köln-Lindenthal a white ghetto? This is the question Kanak TV followed up.

Kanak TV reverses the racist gaze. But we don’t simply want to shed light on the racist gaze and the predetermined images in our minds. Our focus is directed towards how images are made, manipulated and employed. Kanak TV exposes the media gaze as power by making use of the gaze of power. So that the balance of power can be questioned, rejected and countered.
(Kanak Attak Cologne)

<b>Jun Yang</b>
Camouflage. LOOK like them TALK like them
2002/03 | Video | 16.47 min

The changed living conditions for legal and illegal migrants since 9/11 are the point of departure for Jun Yang’s video work “Camouflage. LOOK like them TALK like them.“ Headlines from recent years, showing how the launch of security and surveillance debates have led to outward appearances being experienced as frightening and threatening, are contrasted with advertising images for branded clothing, with voiceover that uses the fictitious character X to discuss the everyday tactics mentioned in the title: camouflage, dressing according to fashion, mastering language and gesture, so as not to stand out from the crowd as the “other,“ appear as the appropriate means of survival for migrants in a racist and xenophobic society. X failed to obey this rule, and due to his suspicious appearance and behavior – running after a bus – he was identified as illegal and arrested. (Luisa Ziaja)

Jun Yang, born 1975 in Zhonghua, China, lives in Vienna. Solo shows: Galerie Ilka Bree, Bordeaux (2006); Annex 14, Berne (2005); Büro Friedrich, Berlin (2004); Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna (2003); Musée d’Art Contemporain, Marseille (2002); Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (2001). Group shows: “This Land is my Land …“, Kunsthalle Nürnberg (2006); Liverpool Biennial (2006); Venice Biennial (2005); “Projekt Migration“, Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2005); Manifesta 4, Frankfurt (2002).