[CLICK for Catalogue] –> ALAND – BIACS3 Seville Biannual 2008-9

alan∂ :: scøpic regimes of uncertainty (seoul station)
nam june paik art center, yongin shi, seoul, south korea, 2009
commission: philip pocock
collaboration w. alex wenger, linus stolz, daniel burckhardt
student assistants: jay bang, jun lee, julian finn

THE MOON WAS DONE BEFORE I WAS BORN philip pocock, 2007.

From aland – seoul station

https://vimeo.com/41717697

alan∂: seoul station installation sketch by philip pocock at nam june paik art center. the space offered by the curator had a matrix of memento backlit images from nam june paik’s journey on one side. opposite, a passageway. between, a temporary divide with a moorish cut-out entrance. opposite that, the back side of a screening room wall. our space i realized had no walls. i imagined then a change from the seville configuration of aland’s three media sculptures – in the round, like a desert island. after all media sculpture is both spatial (2) due to the flatscreens, and spacial (3D) due to everything else. alex wenger and i made a new work for the biggest white bordering surface – 1 mini cellphone oled screen with databank of images. it looked great centered on that huge whiteness.

TRANSLOCALITY

some little sketches alan∂ director made from the middle of nowhere and on the terrace waiting for the alanders to arrive and the nam june paik art center crew to get to the space that youngchul lee had offered. it had walls but no ‘walls’, the dominant border being a memorial mosaic of tv and video scans relating to paik’s history and colleagues, the others being an entrance with an arabesque doorway detail ‘surprise’ from youngchul lee, an exterior of a black cube bordering, and a quirky oblique passage wall.

so the original idea of birds, migration and desert island connected well to this island of space. i wanted it to be away from the wall as things had worked well in seville and space allowed. media sculpture is relief of sorts as the screen vector of light demands that in part, but if the 3 main aland elements – moses, muhammad and federico – the subject/object for installation were placed ‘in the round’ the guests would circulate along with the myriad of scopes and images…

From aland director at work

the roots of alan∂ are as deep and tangled as Prairie grass. its most distinct feature is its use of ‘scopes’, birdspotting- and telescopes, various monocular devices which in effect mirror the contemporary and ubiquitous 2D screen. surveilling screens, alan∂ scopes grab details intermittently, and these close-up pictures seek pictures, blogger snapshots and other views of contemporary cyber-andalusia, the ‘glocality’ which commissioned philip pocock to build a team and direct a work.

the main artistic roots of aland’s ‘scopic regime’ are dual, as depicted in the photos here: the first, a ‘movie mapping’ in equatorial south america, 1999, h|u|m|b|o|t, commissioned to philip pocock on the occasion of alexander von humboldt’s 200th anniversary since his journey to the equinoctial regions of the new continent in 1799.

h|u|m|b|o|t, in ‘net_condition,’ zkm karlsruhe 1999.

the second integration of a participatory scopic device dates back to cologne 1991, when philip pocock mounted the annual summer show in his studio. called ‘schlechtwetterprogram’ guests/users were greeted by a snowy black and white cathode ray tube at the entrance to his sprawling studio. by pressing buttons the image on the tube would pan, tilt and zoom a telescopic video camera elsewhere in the studio and display works, or details of works, by friends such as david reed, carl ostendarp, richard phillips, cewzan grayson, peter fend, joseph nechvatal, georg dokoupil, beat streuli, thomas ruff, rosemarie trockel, and any viewers en passage through the analogue direct exhibition area on another floor of the studio.

‘schlechtwetterprogram,’ philip pocock studio cologne, 1991.

both scopic regimes lend an uncertainty to observation and a complicity within exhibition scenarios that embrace electronics and other medialogical codes… leading to alan∂ 2008.

Physical Computing – Prototype Your Life!

alex wenger, julian finn, datatects on alan∂, and associate midi-guru manuel odendahl have compiled a catalogue of sustainable and intriguing 21st century media art and music ideas involving participation, sensory extension and the open source Arduino hardware platform.

during the long research period for this valuable manual on the cutting-edge, alan∂ datatects produced the OLED micro-cinema armatures for the alan∂ installations at the Seville Biannual and the Nam June Paik Art Center, 2008-9. Best price.

aland OLEDs at Nam June Paik Art Center from alan∂ on Vimeo.

Philip Pocock translocal birdseye scopic image and mashup tests:

Philip Pocock explains alan∂ principle to students Lorenz Schwarz and
Yunjun Lee. Teaching and learning as part of art.

EXPosition of mythology
ELectronic technology
12 June – 4 October 2009
Opening 12 June Friday, at 5pm
Exhibition Hall 2 of Nam June Paik Art Center

Opening

 
Artists

Nam June Paik, alan∂ directed by Philip Pocock, Chang Sung Eun, Christoph Meier, Gregor Zootzky, Hong Chul Ki, Honore ∂’O, Javier Tellez, Jimmie Durham, Kevin Clarke, Kim Yun Ho, Mary Bauermeister, Marcus Coates, Roland Topor, Ryu Han Kil, Park Kyong, Park Jong Woo, Pedro Diniz Reis, Tilo Baumgartel, Ujino Muneteru, Una Szeemann, Ute Mueller, and Others.

Curated by Youngchul Lee