(im)mobile and Tracing Tracks
18 OCTOBER TO 30 NOVEMBER
(im)mobile
Edith Flückiger (Lucerne, Switzerland) and Germaine Koh (Vancouver)
Curated by Mireille Bourgeois and Chantal Molleur
Presented by Dalhousie Art Gallery and the Centre for Art Tapes in partnership with White Frame (Basel, Switzerland)
OPENING RECEPTION Friday 17 October at 6 pm
Followed by an Artists’ Tour at 8 pm
The two artists in (im)mobile present conceptual artwork, comprised of electronic installation, video and digital text pieces, in a conversation exploring mobility and balance. Edith Flückiger’s work reaches for a place in time and space that is unknown to us, tries to find the space between here and there on a map– an unmarked site. Through multi-media environments that create sites of ambiguity, and text works that take us nowhere (and at the same time question the mundane), Flückiger plays with our perception and ideas of memory and space. Germaine Koh turns our attention to the site-specific socio-geographic implications of common spaces, the recognizable, and the use of everyday objects. The objects she uses are often enhanced by electronics to create viewer interaction, which transgresses their specific meaning when placed in a gallery space. In other works, Koh situates various sensors outside of the gallery space and their data is relayed to electronically activated components within the Gallery; the sensation of ‘the outsider’ is enacted within the exhibition space, and disrupts our anticipated experience of a specific environment.
These artists consider human presence or absence within their work: while Koh creates a space for the body to interact with the artwork, Flückiger shows the body seemingly lost in a nowhere land. One artist‘s works do not knowingly create a space for the other’s, but they trigger a conversation, a dialogue between sites of the mind and states of the body.
After its premier in Halifax, (im)mobile will travel to the Haus für Kunst Uri in Altdorf, Switzerland in 2016. A catalogue will be produced with critical essays by writers and curators Jonathan Shaughnessy and Susann Wintsch.
Project site:
http://tracingtracks.com
Artists: Edith Flückiger and Germaine Koh
Curators: Mireille Bourgeois and Chantal Molleur
Website by Lukas Steinman
Tracing Tracks is an on-line game for experiencing different spaces. Topography, history, politics, and building conventions all shape the way we navigate our environments. This game challenges the orienteering skills of players, enabling them to feel the differences between various locales. Users are asked to take an existing track recorded by another player and re-trace these steps in another site. This action highlights the diverse logics underlying space. Tracks can be downloaded either as line drawings to overlay a map or as coordinates for a GPS device. The game will live online during the course of the exhibition, which after its premiere in Halifax will travel to the Haus für Kunst Uri in Altdorf, Switzerland in 2016.
This online project was made possible through the generous support of Arts Nova Scotia, and the Canada Council for the Arts.
