Johanna Bruckner - The gestural abject
5:00, 2009Homage to Cindy Sherman.
2009
Video, 4"55, 4:3
Johanna Bruckner
produced in the course of a special invitation to the 10th Contemporary Art Festival, Barcelona 2009/10.
Recent Screenings:
53rd Venice Biennial, Collateral Event by Venezia Contemporanea, Italy;
Kuma Galerie Berlin 2009, Germany;
10th International Festival of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, BAC 09, 2009/10,
CCCB Center Cultura Contemporanea Barcelona / Fundacio Miro Barcelona, Spain;
SLICK Art Fair, Paris, 2009, France
As a homage to Cindy Sherman this video explores gestures as body masks in terms of redefining "categorial fundamentalisms" of human expression. The presentation of the individual gestures mediate how culture is liable to discursive definition, here being defined and expressed through our own dimensions, wishes and longings. Bruckner explores female masks as a dynamic korpus of self-expression that evolves into some kind of new, inhabitable bodily architecture, and plays with desire of the imaginary, the grotesque, strange, and "abjective" (as J. Kristeva puts it) image of the individual. The self in the mirror, that is more and more discovered as a cyborg image questions in addition a self that is structured as a cyborg-self, a symbolical companion of a computer in ourselves. In the context of this background reflection, the video ironically mediates how globally challenging dynamics materialize themselves in our bodies while simultaneously reflecting conditions, definition and context thereof.
DirectorJohanna BrucknerProducerS.oWriterS.oCameraS.oEditorS.o
CountryAustriaEdition2009 ScreeningsRecent Screenings:
53rd Venice Biennial, Collateral Event by Venezia Contemporanea, Italy;
Kuma Galerie Berlin 2009, Germany;
10th International Festival of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, BAC 09, 2009/10,
CCCB Center Cultura Contemporanea Barcelona / Fundacio Miro Barcelona, Spain;
SLICK Art Fair, Paris, 2009, France
< overview
Who is Johanna Bruckner?
I am specialized in video art and installations, and also combine it both.
My work investigates the cultural gaze of the society, the way we have been trained to fashion culture, and to perceive space. My first projects during my studies of photography at the university are about myself, observing the city and the way it is represented. I read the city in a way that is characterized by an upper position I wanted to put myself into, so as to observe cultural from another – an outsider – point of view. I wanted to go beyond that what everybody considers as city and society. I wanted to render a perspective that is characterized by a different gaze on the city, while I tried to reflect and re-define on my own position as a cultural producer within this discursive game that is called society I am raised in. Thus I produced series of photographs, produced video clips in which I find myself "in-between" positions of the cultural game, as I call it. This approach might have been influenced by my studies of Visual Cultures and Cultural Studies.
Your film is about?
It challenges representation, especially the representation of femaleness in art works. I am critical about objectifying the image of women in art works. I am researching upon ways of creating art that goes beyond ideologically coded images of femaleness. I do not see this video as the answer to the question but a as point I have come up with during my research in Fine Arts. My PHD also questions these issues.
Let me talk about the video: As a hommage to Cindy Sherman this video explores gestures as body masks in terms of redefining "categorial fundamentalisms" of human expression. This video explores parallel worlds between the human as a social being - my gestures-, and the computer, symbolically considered as a part of myself: this mutual relationship is explored by drawing attention to globally challenging dynamics while simultaneously reflecting conditions, definition and context thereof. The parallels between human beings and the computer space as virtual and cultural space is carefully and simply examined through a magical game with a mirror and its interactive response.
It is supposed to be screened in an installation, in which the audience watches the video as if they see themselves in a mirror. There is a kiosk (or white cube, how you wish to define it!), in which the video is screened into, the audience watches the video into the kiosk, it takes part in a process of observing culture, the audience’ function turns into one that is regulating and disciplining the white cube - culture as the white cube, or let me express it differently: The white cube is made by culture.
How did you start with film? And do you have an educational background in art or film?
I found myself in the mirror, playing with gestures, and thought this could be possible video project. I wanted to have something that challenges representations, as nearly all my art works do. I wanted to create the strange gesture, the abject of gesture as I call it. I wanted to produced grotesque bodily figures, somewhat what you don’t consider as normal, as it were, and what you don’t see everyday in the public. Thus I also challenge the division between private and public space.
Could you explain how you work, what themes or concepts and what is important to you?
More and more I began to focus on gender relations in my art works. Critically speaking, I wanted to make aware of a construction of a female discourse, by simply reproducing images of women which render clichéd images of what it culturally means, “to be a woman”. I focused on such projects when I was younger. Today I would work on these issues in a different way. I would not explicitly reproduce female media images the way I did it. I am in danger of reproducing objectified images of women feminists work easily tends to fall into. I am highly critical about art work dealing with feminist issues in terms of its ways it represents femaleness. I think it is not easy to produce so called feminist art work which criticizes patriarchal structures and at the same time does not objectify the female position. I am critical about binary oppositions represented in art work, as well as work that highlights opposition in advantage for women’s right, as these approaches to my mind reproduce a culturally constructed binary dimension between one and the other, in which the women’s other is made explicit and thus again reinforces a binary politically coded structure the women’s representation is caught up.
Right now I focus on work in which I neutrally try to reflect on the way space is lived, the way culture is read as a text, the way it is liable to subjective interpretation, and production, and the way culture and space is regulated, played, produced and represented in manifold, contextual, discursive ways. It is true; I might find myself in a highly post-modern – post-structuralist- perspective. That is, I see culture as a way of symbolizing space, connection and interaction due to varieties of modes of expression. I try to highlight perspectives that represent challenge forms of the cultural gaze, of ways of approaching public space, and private space, of making aware of culture as a temporary game of constructing meanings, and which real effects these meanings have in terms of regulating, and disciplining control, participation, and the consequences of these highly “political” – actions of human behaviour (determination).
My art work can be considered as space in which cultural encounter takes place, in which these approaches are discussed, inhabited, newly interpreted and re-defined. I reflect myself within that space I am talking about in my art works; I reflect on where I stand in the art work, where my space is and how I define these spaces (plural!).
My art work is highly influenced by theoretical discourses of Visual Cultures and Cultural Studies. It explores the gateway between art, theory and practice.
I more and more question the cyberspace, a terrain that has more and more become the center of us. I explore bodily architectures, spatial social geographies, and the boundaries of categories that are in flux.
Where do you get your ideas or influences from?
I have already talked about these issues. I am hugely influenced by Visual Cultures. My art work explores the gateway between art and visual cultures. It is about every day representation, but renders it in a more abstract, re-defined, newly interpreted way...to my mind!
How does the title relate to the work, and how do you find a fitting title?
I easily come up with titles. I reflect on my art work, play with words, and viola, I get it. In this case, The title "Gestural Abject" refers to the things you can see: you see gestures that are strange and grotesk. It is the abject of the gesture. The abject denotes a term that usually defines body fluids, all that that is aked not represent in public discourse. I wanted to makes these abjectical things public. I took this term and defined for gestures. I am playing with gestures, human expression that is not asked to represent in the public.
How does content relate to the form of your work?
Content extremely relates to my work. I have already talked about these points. My art is defined by a large critical, theoretical framework. I always write texts while producing my art work, so as to become clear about my theoretical points I want to discuss in my work.
How do you finance your projects (by yourself, sponsors or subsidy)?
Just by myself. As I don’t do huge film projects, I can finance my smaller video projects myself.
< overview
< Artists interviews
CountryAustriaEdition2009 ScreeningsRecent Screenings:
53rd Venice Biennial, Collateral Event by Venezia Contemporanea, Italy;
Kuma Galerie Berlin 2009, Germany;
10th International Festival of Contemporary Art, Barcelona, BAC 09, 2009/10,
CCCB Center Cultura Contemporanea Barcelona / Fundacio Miro Barcelona, Spain;
SLICK Art Fair, Paris, 2009, France
< overview
Interview
I am specialized in video art and installations, and also combine it both.
My work investigates the cultural gaze of the society, the way we have been trained to fashion culture, and to perceive space. My first projects during my studies of photography at the university are about myself, observing the city and the way it is represented. I read the city in a way that is characterized by an upper position I wanted to put myself into, so as to observe cultural from another – an outsider – point of view. I wanted to go beyond that what everybody considers as city and society. I wanted to render a perspective that is characterized by a different gaze on the city, while I tried to reflect and re-define on my own position as a cultural producer within this discursive game that is called society I am raised in. Thus I produced series of photographs, produced video clips in which I find myself "in-between" positions of the cultural game, as I call it. This approach might have been influenced by my studies of Visual Cultures and Cultural Studies.
Your film is about?
It challenges representation, especially the representation of femaleness in art works. I am critical about objectifying the image of women in art works. I am researching upon ways of creating art that goes beyond ideologically coded images of femaleness. I do not see this video as the answer to the question but a as point I have come up with during my research in Fine Arts. My PHD also questions these issues.
Let me talk about the video: As a hommage to Cindy Sherman this video explores gestures as body masks in terms of redefining "categorial fundamentalisms" of human expression. This video explores parallel worlds between the human as a social being - my gestures-, and the computer, symbolically considered as a part of myself: this mutual relationship is explored by drawing attention to globally challenging dynamics while simultaneously reflecting conditions, definition and context thereof. The parallels between human beings and the computer space as virtual and cultural space is carefully and simply examined through a magical game with a mirror and its interactive response.
It is supposed to be screened in an installation, in which the audience watches the video as if they see themselves in a mirror. There is a kiosk (or white cube, how you wish to define it!), in which the video is screened into, the audience watches the video into the kiosk, it takes part in a process of observing culture, the audience’ function turns into one that is regulating and disciplining the white cube - culture as the white cube, or let me express it differently: The white cube is made by culture.
How did you start with film? And do you have an educational background in art or film?
I found myself in the mirror, playing with gestures, and thought this could be possible video project. I wanted to have something that challenges representations, as nearly all my art works do. I wanted to create the strange gesture, the abject of gesture as I call it. I wanted to produced grotesque bodily figures, somewhat what you don’t consider as normal, as it were, and what you don’t see everyday in the public. Thus I also challenge the division between private and public space.
Could you explain how you work, what themes or concepts and what is important to you?
More and more I began to focus on gender relations in my art works. Critically speaking, I wanted to make aware of a construction of a female discourse, by simply reproducing images of women which render clichéd images of what it culturally means, “to be a woman”. I focused on such projects when I was younger. Today I would work on these issues in a different way. I would not explicitly reproduce female media images the way I did it. I am in danger of reproducing objectified images of women feminists work easily tends to fall into. I am highly critical about art work dealing with feminist issues in terms of its ways it represents femaleness. I think it is not easy to produce so called feminist art work which criticizes patriarchal structures and at the same time does not objectify the female position. I am critical about binary oppositions represented in art work, as well as work that highlights opposition in advantage for women’s right, as these approaches to my mind reproduce a culturally constructed binary dimension between one and the other, in which the women’s other is made explicit and thus again reinforces a binary politically coded structure the women’s representation is caught up.
Right now I focus on work in which I neutrally try to reflect on the way space is lived, the way culture is read as a text, the way it is liable to subjective interpretation, and production, and the way culture and space is regulated, played, produced and represented in manifold, contextual, discursive ways. It is true; I might find myself in a highly post-modern – post-structuralist- perspective. That is, I see culture as a way of symbolizing space, connection and interaction due to varieties of modes of expression. I try to highlight perspectives that represent challenge forms of the cultural gaze, of ways of approaching public space, and private space, of making aware of culture as a temporary game of constructing meanings, and which real effects these meanings have in terms of regulating, and disciplining control, participation, and the consequences of these highly “political” – actions of human behaviour (determination).
My art work can be considered as space in which cultural encounter takes place, in which these approaches are discussed, inhabited, newly interpreted and re-defined. I reflect myself within that space I am talking about in my art works; I reflect on where I stand in the art work, where my space is and how I define these spaces (plural!).
My art work is highly influenced by theoretical discourses of Visual Cultures and Cultural Studies. It explores the gateway between art, theory and practice.
I more and more question the cyberspace, a terrain that has more and more become the center of us. I explore bodily architectures, spatial social geographies, and the boundaries of categories that are in flux.
Where do you get your ideas or influences from?
I have already talked about these issues. I am hugely influenced by Visual Cultures. My art work explores the gateway between art and visual cultures. It is about every day representation, but renders it in a more abstract, re-defined, newly interpreted way...to my mind!
How does the title relate to the work, and how do you find a fitting title?
I easily come up with titles. I reflect on my art work, play with words, and viola, I get it. In this case, The title "Gestural Abject" refers to the things you can see: you see gestures that are strange and grotesk. It is the abject of the gesture. The abject denotes a term that usually defines body fluids, all that that is aked not represent in public discourse. I wanted to makes these abjectical things public. I took this term and defined for gestures. I am playing with gestures, human expression that is not asked to represent in the public.
How does content relate to the form of your work?
Content extremely relates to my work. I have already talked about these points. My art is defined by a large critical, theoretical framework. I always write texts while producing my art work, so as to become clear about my theoretical points I want to discuss in my work.
How do you finance your projects (by yourself, sponsors or subsidy)?
Just by myself. As I don’t do huge film projects, I can finance my smaller video projects myself.
< overview
