Blind Spot @ Teatr Nowy / Warsaw

Blind Spot
Installation / performance

November 14th, 2009
Teatr Nowy, Warsaw
18:00 - 22:00


Blind Spot (now Atomic 5.1), is an installation for 5 stroboscopic lights. Set in a large empty space in a circular formation, the lamps are programed to go off at different times and in varied rhythms in a sequence lasting several minutes and continuously looped over the evening. The spectator is invited to observe from a distance and/or to enter the circle, becoming a performer for the other spectators entering and leaving the exhibition space. The lights illuminate the room and the figure(s) in the space at different angles, producing a sensation of movement. The set-up literally makes the room and the people in the space seem to be dancing.

With the strobe effect images are retained by the retina and are held in place by the same "visual editor" that eliminates the blind spot. The viewer focuses on the last position of anyone he or she is looking at and is somewhat disoriented when the next flash shows the person's new position. The mind attempts to link the images, producing a continuity where there is none. Using multiple sources of light at different angles, a change of position is perceived even if there has been no real displacement. Working with depth, real movement can seem to happen on different planes and in unnatural succession. The installation (and performance) plays with these real and perceived movements.

Commissioned by Teatr Nowy, Blind Spot was realized during a week-long residency in Warsaw and presented as a project-in-process on November 14th, 2009.

Performed by: Ramona Nagabczyńska

Viewmaster in rekto : verso

Kijken is de Kunst
Wouter Hillaert
 / redactioneel

Abstracte, hedendaagse dans als een bezwerende, bijna hallucinatorische trip, waar je je ogen bij uitwrijft? Het kan. Zo’n ervaring bood deze zomer de installatie Viewmaster op Theater Aan Zee. Het Brusselse trio Heike Langsdorf, Ula Sickle en Laurent Liefooghe bouwde een simpele triplex box met twee kamers die in een rechte hoek op elkaar aansluiten. Een schuin spiegelglas scheidt beide kamers, volgens de principes van de negentiende-eeuwse machine ‘Pepper’s ghost illusion’. Met wisselende belichtingen kun je het publiek, dat via een centraal raam de box inkijkt, de illusie geven dat er twee dansers, elk in hun eigen kamertje, op dezelfde plek dooreenvloeien als geesten, als in een live videoclip. Het zorgde voor een van de hoogst denkbare artistieke ervaringen. Je ogen bij de neus genomen.

Zo zijn er twee soorten kunst die ingrijpen op het kijken zelf. Er is kunst die het erbij moet zeggen dat ze je kijk verandert. En er is kunst die dat gewoon doet, voor iedereen met twee ogen. Creaties à la Viewmaster of beeldend werk als dat van Escher of Magritte gaan naar de essentie van kunst. Ze bevragen heel concreet de objectieve blik waarmee we naar de wereld menen te kijken. Ze vertrekken daarbij niet van voorkennis, maar van de simpele gelijkheid tussen ziende mensen. In die zin bespelen ze ook de essentie van wat een ‘publiek’ is: aanschouwers, viewers . . .

rekto : verso
(for full article)

In the works: Solid Gold

Currently in residence in the Pianofabriek (Brussels) :
September 14th - 24th, 2009


SOLID GOLD
A performance by Ula Sickle in collaboration with Dinozord & Yann Leguay


Concept: Ula Sickle / Created with and performed by Dinozord / Sound concept & design: Yann Leguay / Production: Rebecca September / Management: Caravanproductions for Rebecca September vzw / Residency: Pianofabriek Kunstenwerkplaats, Les Bains Connectives, KVS, Tangente (Montreal) / Support: VGC, Office franco-quÈbÈcois de la jeunesse, Canada Council for the Arts / Special thanks: Studio Kabako.

Looping the Loop @ Galerie Anita Beckers

The video Installation Looping the Loop: From African Dance to American Hip Hop and back Again as part of the exhibition Performance // Frame @ Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt



PERFORMANCE // FRAME
Galerie Anita Beckers
Frankenalle 74, Frankfurt
04.09.2009 - 30.10.2009

15 years after the symposium “LIFE IS ART ENOUGH - Performance and expanded art forms. One approach” – organized by Anita Beckers in collaboration with the Institute Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt - we would like to pick up the thread again in the gallery and through selected positions question the current situation of Performance as an artistic medium. In a moment when the art market regenerates, artists whose work deals with one's own body and is commercially difficult, seem to trigger new critical discourses.

For the season start, Performance // Frame tries to pick up some thematic directions within Performance art and confront positions from the 70s with younger artists.


Participating artists: Victor Alimpiev | Maria Jose Arjona | Karolin Back & Mira Bussemer | Kathryn Cornelius | Dennis Feser | Patrycja German | Nilbar Güres | Séverine Hubard | Jürgen Klauke | Vollrad Kutscher | Bjørn Melhus | Julia Oschatz | Johanna Reich | Ulrike Rosenbach | Amparo Sard | Ula Sickle | Annegret Soltau | Sebastian Stumpf | Herbert Weber | Eva Weingärtner | Paul Wiersbinski | Elizabeth Wurst

Viewmaster @ Theater Aan Zee

Viewmaster opened at TAZ / Theater Aan Zee, Oostende 03/08 - 07/08 2009, with 10 performances over 5 days @ the Stadshuis in the city center. An Article about Viewmaster appeared in deMorgen, weekend-edition Aug 1st.

Looping the Loop

Looping the Loop:
From African Dance to American Hop Hop and Back Again
Video Installation
In collaboration w/ Dinozord & Petna Ndaliko Katondolo

Le Fresnoy / Studio National des Arts Contemporains
June 12th - July 30th

In Looping the Loop Dinozord, a young Hip Hop dancer from Kinshasa (DR Congo) traces the roots of this trans-historical and trans-national dance form, looking to traditional African dance as well as to forms of entertainment dance from Broadway and Hollywood to MTV.

Presented as an installation, the life-size video projection is displayed next to a still image taken from a film by Congolese filmmaker Petna Katondolo, who’s reportages on life in Goma (East DRC) for Metropolis TV (NL), are a source of inspiration for this project. The image and the ambient sound that accompany it, were taken during a dance competition he organized in October 2008. Simultaneous with a regional conflict backed by international players over the area’s natural resources, the dance competition was attended by thousands of local spectators as well as refugees displaced by the war.

Looping the Loop is a new video installation produced by Le Fresnoy (2009) Concept: Ula Sickle / In collaboration with: Dinozord & Petna Ndaliko Katondolo / Sound design: Yann Leguay / Camera: Vincent Pinckaers

Nickelodeon @ The Rotterdam Film Festival

C&H
[christoph ragg
christophe meierhans
heike langsdorf
with the participation of ula sickle]


Nickelodeon @ The Rotterdam International Film Festival:

24.01.2009 _ 22h
LANTAREN / VENSTER
GOUVERNESTRAAT 133
ROTTERDAM


With Nickelodeon, the audience selects film excerpts from a list of 35 titles, using a system very similar to that of the jukebox. The performers occupy the positions of the camera crew and using aluminum frames of different sizes, perform short choreographies based on the original camera movements (travelings, pans, zoom's, etc.), to the sound of the original soundtrack.

The selection of excerpts from feature films, documentaries, television shows, advertisements and animations are all faithfully recreated for you, but without the actors, costumes, decor or original images; these take shape in your imagination.

http://www.open-frames.net/projects/nickelodeon

http://www.tsee-und-asch.ch
http://www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com