<nettime> nettime-ro moderator alexandru patatics on venice bienale

["geert lovink" <geert@xs4all.nl>]

From: "Ruxandra Balaci" <balaci@romanian-art.com>
Subject: Romanian Pavilion/Press Release

The team of the Romanian Pavilion: Ruxandra Balaci -  Commissioner/curator,
Alexandru Patatics and Sebastian Bertalan, curators-artists, Gheorghe
Rasovszky, artist Context Network, artist and Raluca Velisar - Assistant of
the General Commissioner have the pleasure of inviting you to visit the
Romanian exhibition at the 49th International Exhibition of Art 2001,
Giardini di Castello, Venezia.

The official opening of the Romanian Pavilion will take place Friday, June
8th 2001, 11.30 a.m. The exhibition will be open to the public from June
10th to November 4th 2001, from 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m., closing day: Monday
(with the exception of June 11th, 2001). On Saturday the exhibition will
close at 10.00 p.m.

The exhibition of the Romanian Pavilion is organized by the Romanian
Ministry of Culture and Cults, The Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the
National Office for Documentation and Art Exhibitions and Istituto Romeno di
Cultura e Ricerca Umanistica (Venezia), also supported by Romanian-art.com,
Pro Helvetia, Format Foundation, DNT.

The two projects presented in the pavilion are:
TERRA NOVA - a project by Gheorghe Rasovszky, curator Ruxandra Balaci
CONTEXT - a project by Context Network, curators Alexandru Patatics,
Sebastian Bertalan
The projects will share the same space in a temporal alternation.

TERRA NOVA by GHEORGHE RASOVSZKY is a multimedial video-assemblage,
home-made/low budget featuring Ruxx, Lea and DJ Sleek. A fairy tale story a
little bit too harsh. A work in Gigi Rasovszky's style, with
surrealist-psychedelic-rave notes, based on the playful relation between
image/text/music. Once upon a time it was a Terra Nova, the parallel world
that each of us imagine, the hope for an existing alternative to this world.
A sublime and desperate subterfuge, generating a minimal world. Similar to
this intolerant world, and unfortunately, less paradoxical. (The only
reserves of unalterated/uncorrupted energy that we still have at our
disposal are provided in Gheorghe Rasovszky's vision by childhood and music)
the supernatural density of infancy and the concrete immediateness of music.

Terra Nova is composed by a handful of soil, by soaked wheat that become
luxurious vegetation, dwelled by plastic toys, small inhabitants showing a
childish aggressivity. It is also composed of perplexity, words&music. A
sensorial construction. Naďve and essentially Very simple, and very
complicated symbolically (as the reading requests it).
CONSUMMATUM EST, VIDEO LUPUM, AD GLORIAM, SANCTUM SANCTORUM, EX NIHILO
NIHIL, EXTRA MUROS, DE GUSTIBUS ET COLORIBUS NON DISPUTANDUM are the
video-clips that reflect this world preoccupied by locutions, cv/s
politicmoneypower, genetic engineering. Terra Nova is the lost infancy in an
over-crowded labyrinth. There is a general conglomerated-sound, by DJ
Sleek - a global groove - that accompany the projections, some kind of a
continuous Chaos sound, composed by hardly recognizable fragments. The video
projectors distribute a continuous image and/or deconstruct it

The characters:  Dr. Pet who speaks clearly about the problems of the
mankind and planet. The Dwarf who asks the Doctor different questions (The
Doctor and the Dwarf are obviously substitutes of the ancient chore). The
Green Frog (cosmologic symbol in various mythologies, from Japan to South
Vietnam, from France to the Romanian folklore) plays the role of the
Demiurges' ambassador. Other characters become the protagonists of various
episodes: the Shaman Troll and the group of ducks, the Cornless Unicorn
(calu'buianu), the Foxy Androgyn Little Girl, the Insignificant Miner. War
(the war between the Black Bull and the cooker, between the Little Pink
Riding Hood and the paleontological lizard, between Locust Boy and Violet
Brontocluster) /Earthquake/ Annihilation and Regeneration. An infantile
cosmogony. (Playful and serious). A kind of third millennium Divina Comedia.
Between Heaven and Hell a continous struggle.

CONTEXT
a project by Alexandru Patatics and Sebastian Bertalan

Website: www.context.ro
(project space, documentation and press resources)

CONTEXT is a long-term project which will be realized in different
instances, under different institutional circumstances, under changing
conditions and configurations. The actual instance takes place before and
during the 49th Venice Biennale. The project is thought as a mediatic
instrument to dynamically evaluate and examine a context defined by the
conditions and situation (world - art scene - curator - artist - event - art
scene - world), by the artists and by the physic and virtual spaces in the
project. The project tries to investigate this context by sovereign and at
some amount coordinated artistic action. Thus the exhibited work is the
interactive product of a process taking place through the performance of
individuals acting autonomous, but integrated.

the context network
The producer of CONTEXT is the context network, a communicative and
collaborative structure of artists (individuals or groups), which can act
autonomously in the project's spaces. The context network members do not
belong to an organised group existing independently from the project; they
enter the network by invitation. The way of collaboration and the level of
implication follows individual decision of each invited artist. The context
network is functional during the period of one instance of the project and
its members may change in different instances. The curators are members of
the context network themselves and coordinate the activities of the network.

means
The kinds of media used are not significant for the idea of the project.
Nevertheless, without necessarily being based on advanced technical
equipment, the project investigates the implications of a context in which
the global technological and communicational evolution plays a crucial role
in the determination of general trends, both in technologically advanced and
less developed countries, like for example Romania.

project spaces / platform
The action/interaction/output/construction/deconstruction platform is common
for all members of the context network and can vary in different phases and
instances of the project. Possible project spaces are 'online' and 'offline'
spaces, for example video/projection (interactive and non-interactive
installation), web, catalogue or other publication paper space, cd-rom
applications.

the artists (context network)
Bogdan ACHIMESCU (Krakow, PL), Alexandru ANTIK (Cluj, RO), Olimpiu BANDALAC
(Bucuresti, RO), Sándor BARTHA (Budapest, HU), Sebastian BERTALAN
(Düsseldorf, DE), Matei BEJENARU (Iasi, RO), Mircea CANTOR (Nantes, FR),
Calin DAN (Amsterdam, NL), Teodor GRAUR (Bucuresti, RO), KISS PÁL Szabolcs
(Budapest, HU), Calin MAN (Arad, RO), Dan MIHALTIANU (Berlin, DE), Nicolae
ONUCSAN (Oradea, RO), Alexandru PATATICS (Timisoara, RO), ROSTOPASCA Group
(Bucuresti, RO), Gusztáv ÜTO (Sf. Gheorghe, RO), Sorin VREME (Timisoara, RO)

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