UNBOUND – exploring the limits of photography… and beyond!
Unbound is an independent non-profit extension of Unseen, dedicated to exploring the expanding outer limits of the photographic universe on a monumental scale, and Unseen’s most ambitious project to date.
Unbound presented in the 700 m2 industrial heritage Transformatorhuis hall next to the main section in Westergas, is curated by an independent external curator, and is the venue for a professional symposium for institutional curators of photography.
This year Damarice Amao, photography curator of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, took up the job of guest curator. Amao selected a dozen projects where photography crosses over into digital art, installations, performance art, sculpture, virtual reality and video art, some of them we can present here:
Alice Pallot & De Anima : Installation O.M.O. (Hangar Art Center) (image 2)
Oyster Mushroom Orchestra “O.M.O” is a “bio-augmented” photographic installation.
It all started from the photography of oyster mushrooms, cultivated in an urban vegetable garden tower in Romainville (France). From this moment of life captured through a macro lens, they re-created a 3D model of this organic subject in order to be as close to it as possible, to observe its multiple faces and aspects, to reach inside the photography; and to try to reinterpret the organic, sensitive and intelligent activity that they experienced at the time of their observation.
Following the principle of augmented reality, the concept of bio-augmented photography that they are developing consists of combining the organic reality of the oyster mushrooms with an instrument made up of electrodes, a machine that musically transcribes the frequencies of the oyster mushrooms and is reinterpreted, and a parabolic object made from mycelium that emits in real time the music orchestrated by the oyster mushrooms in the centre of the installation. This music accompanies in real time the three-dimensional journey around the photography.
In this installation, the De Anima collective addresses the subject of the intelligence of the fungi family and the way it communicates via the network organisation of mushrooms, thanks to their “mycelium”, a set of more or less branched filaments that form the vegetative part of the mushroom.
According to a study published by The Royal Society of London, mushrooms are apparently capable of communicating with each other through their electrochemical activities. The study claims that mushrooms use up to 50 “words” to communicate and that the distribution of fungal word lengths correspond with those of human languages. The mycorrhizal network carrying these exchanges that serves as a carbon sink and reserve of nutrients, is extremely vast and absolutely essential for the survival of animal and plant species.
HANGAR
1050 Brussels Belgium
tel. 32 (0)2 538 00 85
[email protected]
www.hangar.art
Jaehun Park ‘Highway Epigram’ 2022 ( Bradwolff & partners)
Jaehun Park is showing simulated video works in Unbound. His works are created using 3D scanning technology to translate physical substances into virtual substances, such as polygon structures and point cloud systems (a set of data points in space). He uses hyper-realistic 3D rendering to stage mass-produced objects –as vessels of capitalist ideology – in a desolate digital space or to situate them in ‘ritualistic’ installations depicting impossible natural phenomena.
With his latest work ‘Highway Epigram’, Jaehun Park employed 3D scanning data such as point cloud and photogrammetry technology to depict the reality of our world. ‘Highway Epigram’ offers a piercing look at the current world we live in, including the war in Ukraine, hyperinflation, and so on. The fundamental question that emerges from this work is, “Are economic growth and our progress the same?” For this video, he explores the sensation of speed with the aid of road signs and infrastructures on motorways, explosions of buildings, etc. Park uses the metaphor of the motorway, as an allegory of the fragmented objects and simulation of point cloud particles from the detonated building, to reveal the world laid bare. Abstract brushstrokes rendered in 3D space derive from the trajectory of fragments of a collision.
With his simulation algorithms, manipulated and staged virtual landscapes and installations, he reveals the tip of the real world – oversaturated by hideous and glorious moments of capitalism. Desire, vanity, guilt, irrationality and debt become resources in the ‘ritual’ space of capitalism. The concept of hell manifests itself not after death, but here in this diabolical reality.
bradwolff & partners
Amsterdam oost The Netherlands
+31 6-513 999 54
[email protected]
www.bradwolff-partners.nl
JAYA PELUPESSY Manufactured Manual (Gallery O’Breen) (image 4 & 5)
Artist Jaya Pelupessy (1989) is fascinated by the enormous role that photography plays in our everyday lives. We increasingly observe the world through a camera lens. We share moments and experiences through images and direct our own reality. Pelupessy searches for a different understanding of the image through photographs, installations and through 16mm film. He does this by analysing and deconstructing historical reproduction techniques and using them in a different way to create an image. He invites us to reflect on how images are created and what that means for our perception of the world around us.
RGB-Birds
The coloured layers in the new printing techniques prompted Pelupessy’s interest in 16mm film and his desire to separate the colour layers back into their component parts. He filmed three parrots that are mostly either red, green or blue (RGB). He filmed each bird separately and mounted one film after the other onto a single reel. The film is fed through three separate projectors directed at a single screen. In this way the colours are visibly and physically separated from each other. The parrots that Pelupessy chose for this installation refers to the images that were used to promote curtain colours of 16mm film by film manufactures. The film is best read as a moving photograph.
Galerie Caroline O’Breen
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
+31647104484
https://carolineobreen.com
LAURA HOSPES: No Man’s Land (LANGart) (image 6)
Laura Hospes (1994) presents her performance “No Man’s Land” at Unbound.
Her work Jenny is presented by LANGart at the main section of the UNSEEN fair.
For more detailed information, I refer you to the fifth contribution above today.
LANGart
1016 SP Amsterdam
+31 (0)624605088 or +31 (0)643263701
[email protected]
www.langart.nl
Marcin Dudek (1979) – SEKTOR (Galerie Ron Mandos Amsterdam & Harlan Levey Projects Brussels) (images 7-8)
SEKTOR can be considered as a “memory box,” similar to his 2018 work “Akumulator”, SEKTOR exemplifies Marcin Dudek’s anti-readymade attitude, combining his unique adrenaline-fueled approach to social abstraction, crowd violence and stadium subcultures, as well as the three major forms of production in his practice: performance, mixed-media collage and sculpture.
The cage-like structure refers to the stadium as a theatre of social reality and spectacle, but more literally speaks of the areas used to section off visiting fans at European football matches. It is illuminated by small floodlights in each corner. Fragments of clothing are caught in the wires. These are concealed by resin (jesmonite), which has been squeezed by the artist’s hand leaving the imprints of his clenched fists wrapped around the bars and clutching traces of what has been ensnared in the fence. The center of the enclosure has been forced apart by hand allowing limited access to enter or escape.
Inside, is something of an aftermath. Four beams, staggered like stadium bleachers, support twenty hanging fragments, which have been brutalised. Each fragment is intricately collaged on both sides with strips of medical tape, paint and image transfers. These images were then vigorously layered with various materials such as metal, textile, paper mâché, jesmonite, and ash; scorched or even burned completely as narratives are worked and reworked through an intense analytical and intuitive process of repetitive appropriation and deconstruction.
The floor is covered in images from the artist’s time as a football hooligan, woven together with documentation of hooligan subcultures across various geographies and decades, including for example the Handsworth Riots in England (1985) alongside the Cairo Ultras protesting the Port Said massacre (2012). In this manner, personal experience is embedded in larger global histories. These images have been obscured by orange pigment and the heat of a smoke grenade, a gesture of simultaneous distress and empowerment that is key to Dudek’s performance vocabulary. The four sections of fence have previously been used by the artist in various performances and installations since 2013, testifying to a history of labour and use as well as anxiety, trauma and intervention.
RON MANDOS
1016HJ Amsterdam The Netherlands
+31 20 3207036
[email protected]
www.ronmandos.nl
HARLAN LEVEY PROJECTS 1050 ELSENE / IXELLES & 1080 MOLENBEEK
Brussels Belgium
[email protected]
+32 485 699 146 / +32 476 234 757
hl-projects.com
Michel Lamoller: Dislocated Space (The Ravestijn Gallery)(images 9-10)
The lens-based installation “Dislocated Space” by the artist Michel Lamoller is a room sized layered work built from a single image. Visitors are allowed to enter the installation. Being inside, parts of the body are being hidden and the spectator becomes part of the image. By taking a picture, the visitors actually finalize the work. Having worked with layering photographic images for almost a decade, this is Lamoller’s largest work so far.
And because seeing is believing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSg67HHyZ3Q
www.michel-lamoller.com
The Ravestijn Gallery
1013 BV Amsterdam The Netherlands
+31 (0)20-5306005
[email protected]
www.theravestijngallery.com
Neoza Goffin (Neoza Goffin) images 11-12
Neoza Goffin is an interdisciplinary healing artist. In her artistic practice she combines spiritual symbolism inspired on Tantra, Tao and Bhuddism with present-day themes such as sex positivity, body diversity, multiculturalism and gender neutrality using installation, photography, VR, video and performances. She investigates how the fusion of touch-based rituals and art can be used to evoke psychological healing and transformation.
Neoza Goffin
neozagoffin.com/contact/
www.neozagoffin.com
Vita Buivid: The distance is… (2020-in progress) (MP Project)
Working with archives and historical materials calls my attention to matters of both critical method and evidence. Photo sculptures are made of glass negatives found at flea markets. Consciously pilling off “cuteness” and retro impact of material, thinking about family albums politically – regarding class, race and gender, refusing the simple recovery of the past by the meanings given in the present, I am presenting both aftermath and continuity of immigration, based on a personal experience.
As a Ukrainian-born artist holding a Russian passport, at the moment I have no chance to return neither to Ukraine nor to Russia. Also, I have no access to my archives, both family and artistic. This is regretful and symbolic, as millions of people all over the world could and still can relate to the notion of lost archives.
Dealing with the generational trauma, perceiving it as a part of my life and creating from it, visualising the thoughts of refugees forced to leave their homeland, taking away only collective memories and mental archives.
The project is presented as an installation in the form of an architectural layout of a non-existent city and a shelter space at the same time: chaotic and out of shape. Visually it refers to Utopian Styles, such as Constructivism and De Stijl.
The installation’s sound includes personal stories
Vita Buivid
http://vita-buivid.com/contacts/
We received no information on following projects of UNBOUND
- Anna Malagrida – Philipp von Rosen Galerie (Cologne)
- Laurence Aëgerter – Galerie Binome (Paris)
- Lucile Boiron- HORS-CADRE (PARIS)
- Poulomi Basu – JAPC (Basildon)
And finally – yes- the International Book Fair
An important part of UNSEEN that always has attracted wide public interest is the book fair. The initiative unites sixty-seven independent (inter)national publishers of art and photography books that present their most recent and most beautiful publications.
And also here UNSEEN can announce an exciting new initiative: the launch of a new Book Award in cooperation with GOST Books, London’s famous boutique publisher of photography books. From a total of 353 entries from 40 countries – unpublished projects by photographers – a professional jury will choose a winner whose project will be designed and published as a book by GOST.
After last year’s restrictions, there will again be room for special book launches and signing sessions. Here we have limited information on what will be happening, but still we can announce a few initiatives to look forward to.
Anton Corbijn at Hannibal Books (images 14-17)
UNSEEN will be the venue of the world premiere of Anton Corbijn’s latest book INSTANTON at Hannibal Books – and the master photographer will be signing his book on Friday 16/9/2022 from 6.30pm to 8.30pm!
Anton Corbijn needs no introduction, he is internationally known and recognised as a photographer and filmmaker. In Instanton, he shows a series of images never before shown or published.
Corbijn gained his fame and reputation with his portraits of famous figures including Tom Waits, The Rolling Stones, Marlene Dumas, Gerhard Richter, Clint Eastwood, Kate Moss and a host of other influential musicians, artists, filmmakers, models and designers. But over the years, Corbijn has also captured a wealth of intriguing images on his mobile phone. Instanton brings together a wide selection of these snapshots from his private life, as well as shots taken whilst travelling, recording ‘the profane and the profound’. The publication appears met five different manually applied cover images, randomly distributed across the publication series.
Marjolijn Blom at Eriskay Connection. (images 18-19)
Marjolijn Blom will be signing on Saturday 17 September at 5pm at The Eriskay Connection booth.
For wider information about Marjolijn Blom and her project, I refer to the third contribution of today at galerie Dudokdegroot
Margaret Lansink at (M) Editions & Bildhalle (image 20-21)
Margaret Lansink will be signing Friday at 6pm at The (M) Editions at the book market and on Saturday 3pm at the Bildhalle in booth 47.
For wider information about Margaret Lansink and her project, I refer to the first contribution of today where she is mentioned at gallery Bildhalle.
