fr - La première édition du festival vidéo de Biel/Bienne aura lieu du 4 au 7 décembre 2024 dans le centre historique de la ville se tiendra du 4 au 7 décembre 2024 dans le centre historique de Bienne, et sera consacrée au thème de la transformation.
« Aucune chose, aucun moi, aucune forme, aucun motif n’est assuré ; tout est emporté dans une métamorphose invisible, mais jamais en repos. » Robert Musil, L’homme sans qualité.
Les œuvres présentées traitent de la transformation en tant que point d’équilibre entre des forces de destruction et de construction.
Celles-là même qui façonnent notre vie quotidienne, notre environnement, l’économie mondiale ou alimentent les tensions politiques entre puissances.
Organisé par l’espace d’art Juraplatz, avec la participation de la galerie A13, le festival déborde le cadre de l’exposition et investit l’espace public en proposant des œuvres vidéos dans 7 lieux différents.

de — Die erste Ausgabe des Biel/Bienne Video Festival findet vom 4. bis 7. Dezember 2024 im historischen Zentrum von Biel statt und ist dem Thema Transformation gewidmet.
„Kein Ding, kein Ich, keine Form, kein Grundsatz sind sicher, alles ist in einer unsichtbaren, aber niemals ruhenden Wandlung begriffen.“ Robert Musil, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.
Die gezeigten Werke beschäftigen sich mit der Transformation als Gleichgewichtspunkt zwischen zerstörerischen und aufbauenden Kräften.
Eben jene Kräfte, die unser tägliches Leben, unsere Umwelt, die Weltwirtschaft oder die politischen Spannungen zwischen den Mächten prägen.
Das Festival wird vom Kunstraum Juraplatz unter Mitwirkung der Galerie A13 organisiert und geht über den Rahmen der Ausstellung hinaus und erobert den öffentlichen Raum mit Videoarbeiten an sieben
verschiedenen Orten.

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Rhythms & Layers

Lors d'un séjour ayurvédique commun en Inde, Camenisch et Stauch ont entretenu des échanges artistiques et humains intenses. Ils ont décidé de visualiser ces expériences vécues dans un travail en deux parties à l'Espace Juraplatz.

Le travail imprimé présenté à l'intérieur se réfère à l'échange en Inde, la vidéo est le résultat des recherches photographiques réalisées in situ et le prolongement de ce même travail imprimé. Mouvements circulaires, recherches photographiques, faux reflets et flous. Le contenu des images est condensé par des "tirages de mauvaise qualité sur papier thermique" et assemblé dans une chronologie.

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Ukraine, Gaza, Ecuador – die meisten von uns kennen die Orte nur aus Zeitungen, Internet und TV. Die Probleme der Menschen, die dort leben? Unendlich weit weg, so scheint es zumindest. Doch mit dem Flugzeug sind nicht einmal vier Stunden bis Tel Aviv, wenn die Kirchturmglocken in Biel zum Zmittag schlagen, wird in Kiew der Nachmittag eingeläutet. Gerade mal eine Stunde ist es, die uns trennt. Oder doch vereint?
Zeitzonen hin oder her: Wir sitzen alle unter der gleichen Sonne, dem gleichen Mond, den gleichen Satelliten, die über uns kreisen. Letztere sind mitverantwortlich dafür, dass sich alles noch ein bisschen näher und irgendwie auch ferner anfühlt. Ein Klick und schon sind sie weg, die Bilder von Krisengebieten und Hungersnöten. Die Erde dreht sich aber beharrlich weiter und mit ihr die Uhren, die uns vor Augen führen, dass es immer weitergeht und weitergeht und weitergeht. Tick tack, tick tack ... – ob wir wollen oder nicht, ob wir in der Schweiz sind oder sonst irgendwo auf der Welt.
Die Welt, das Globale und wie alles unweigerlich miteinander zusammenhängt – das ist es, was auch den Bieler Künstler Parzival' seit jeher interessiert. Ob es deswegen ausgerechnet Uhren sind, die runden, mit Ziffernblatt und Zeiger, die ihn interessieren? Rund wie der Planet auf dem wir leben zeigen sie uns allen die gleiche Zeit an: Ein Tag hat 24 Stunden, eine Stunde 60 Minuten, eine Minute 60 Sekunden. Ausnahmen? Gibt es nicht.
Mit seiner Installation «In 80 Uhren um die Welt» will der Künstler und Friedensaktivist auf diese eine gemeinsame Zeit aufmerksam machen. Zwischen August und Dezember 2019 hatte er die Uhren für eine Ausstellung im Zürcher Musée Visionnaire erschaffen, kuratiert von Manuela Hitz. Seither ticken sie unaufhörlich. In der Ausstellung in Biel werden die Uhren die Zeit in verschiedenen Städten und Konfliktgebieten auf der ganzen Welt anzeigen. Ganz ohne Bilder und Worte schafft es die Installation, uns näher an Orte und Menschen zu bringen, als Zeitungsmeldungen und TV-Berichte dazu imstande wären.
Der zweite Teil der Ausstellung basiert auf einer Intervention mit aus Zeitungen und Büchern zusammengesetzten Esperanto-Texten, welche Parzival' vor Ort performativ erstellen wird. Auch die Arbeit mit der weltweit verbreiteten Plansprache, welche zum Ziel hatte (und hat), die Menschen noch näher zusammenzubringen, ist ein wichtiger Teil von Parzival's Schaffen. Seit über 50 Jahren verwendet er sie als verbindendes Element in seinem Werk.
Der Künstler wird jeden Tag anwesend sein und den Besucher*innen innerhalb der Ausstellung kostenlose Esperanto-Kurse anbieten.

Manuela Hitz
Kuratorin Musée Visionnaire, Zurich
https://www.museevisionnaire.ch

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Geschichten von Menschen «am Rand» der Gesellschaft, von Getriebenen, Eigensinnigen, Abgehängten, Unsichtbaren. Von Schuld und Scham und von den Mauern zwischen uns und ihnen.
Die Reportagen und Fotografien von Klaus Petrus sind prall von Lebensgeschichten, die sonst kaum zur Sprache kommen und die einem doch irgendwie vertraut sind: von einem Rentner, der zu trinken beginnt, aber so richtig; vom jungen Afghanen, der seit 1000 Tagen auf der Flucht ist und nie ankommen wird; von einer Grossmutter, die sich unsichtbar macht, geht sie auf den Strassen betteln; von einem Familienvater, der 1300 Mal bei einer Prostituierten war – und von anderen Menschen, Orten und Begebenheiten mehr.
Das Buch AM RAND ist seit Ende März 2023 im Buchhandel oder beim Christoph Merian Verlag erhältlich. Gestaltet wurde es von Beat Roth von porto libro. Das Buch kann auch direkt beim Autor bestellt werden: info@klauspetrus.ch

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Meteorologische Ereignisse im Weltall wie Sonnenwinde oder Asteoroiden schwächen regelmässig die schützende Wirkung der Magnetfelder auf der Erde und beeinflussen die irdischen technologischen Systeme, das Klima und die Wege wandernder Tierarten. La dérive des pôles ist ein Projekt, mit dem der Einfluss der Magnetfelder auf den Wandel irdischer Landschaften untersucht wird. Für ihre gestalterische Recherche stützt sich Vanessa Gandar auf irdische Erhebungen von Seefahrern aus dem Jahr 1650, Forschungsergebnisse des Naturwissenschaftlers Alexander von Humboldt und jüngste Entdeckungen.

Sie hat sich zudem in verschiedene Meteoritenkrater auf der ganzen Welt begeben, um Spuren zu finden, die von diesen magnetischen Phänomenen zeugen könnten. Aus all diesen Reisen sind ganze Produktionen entstanden: ein dokumentarischer Atlas der verschiedenen Formen, fotografische Werke und grafische Experimente, welche die Spuren dieser Phänomene auf geologischer, kultureller und gesellschaftlicher Ebene auf plastische, sensible und technische Weise zum Ausdruck bringen. Die für das Festival geschaffene Installation hinterfragt das Verhältnis des Menschen zum Lebendigen, zur Erde und zum Kosmos.

Unterstützt von: DRAC Grand Est / Région Grand Est

Friedhöfe, zerstörte Landschaften, bedrohlich leere Häuserschluchten oder Fleisch, auf dem sich die Maden tummeln. Im Fokus der Malerei von Pat Noser stehen Zerfallsprozesse. Natürliche und dezidiert auch solche, die als geplanter Verschleiss den Konsum am Laufen und die Wirtschaft am Wachsen halten – mit für Mensch und Klima drastischen Folgen.
Diesem künstlich angeheizten Konsum tritt Pat Noser mit einem Medium entgegen, dem die Nachhaltigkeit implizit ist. Ihr virtuos gemalter Realismus fasziniert und zwingt zum Innehalten. Pat Nosers Sorgfalt ist eine widerständige Geste. Ein Stück Machtkritik, das bei aller Ohnmacht auch Hoffnung macht.
Pat Noser ist 1960 in Aarau geboren und lebt seit vielen Jahren in Biel. Sie verfügt über eine lange Ausstellungsbiografie und hat zahlreiche Auszeichnungen und Preise erhalten. Zuletzt 2019 einen Werkpreis vom Aargauer Kuratorium.

Claudia Spinelli, Kunstraum Baden, 2021

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Die Videoarbeiten Exogenic und Deep Down I & II von Anouk Sebald * 1971, CH enstanden speziell für den Off-Space Juraplatz, in Biel. Das Video Exogenic, wird direkt auf die Scheiben der ehemaligen, in den 30er Jahren, in der Architektur der Bieler Moderne erbauten und mittlerweile denkmalgeschützten Bushaltestelle, projiziert. Die Projektion verbindet so das Äussere des Public Off-Space mit dem inneren Ausstellungsraum, dem ehemaligen Pissoir der Haltestelle. Im Video Exogenic befasst sich Sebald mit den dringlichen und aktuellen Themen des Konsums in Bezug auf Identitäten und der damit verbundenen Identitätskonstruktionen. Glitzer, Glimmer, Reichtum und Fame bilden einen Sehnsuchtsort, der heutzutage mit den aktuellen Social-Media Plattformen und den immer besseren digitalen Mitteln einen kaum vorstellbaren unendlichen Raum bilden.

Im Inneren befindet sich die Installation Deep Down I & II. Die Installation hüllt den Raum ein und lässt die Besucher*Innen visuell und akustisch in das «Innere» eintauchen.

http://www.anouksebald.ch

Nicolas Rupcich

Nicolás Rupcich (Santiago, 1981). He holds a Bachelor of Arts from Universidad Finis Terrae, a Master in Visual Arts from Universidad de Chile and a Master in Media Arts from HGB Leipzig. His work covers different media, mainly experimentation with photography, video and animation. Most of his projects address issues related to technologies linked to the production of digital images. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Chile and abroad, he has also participated in video and new media festivals such as Transmediale (Germany, 2012), Ars Electronica (Austria, 2014), Festival FILE (Brazil, 2015), Festival Loop (Spain, 2016, 2018), among others.

F&D Cartier

The visual artist couple exhibits under the name F&D Cartier and lives in Biel/Bienne, Switzerland. Since 1995, they have merged their practices - plastic art and photography.
They are represented in various museums and collections abroad and in Switzerland and have received important awards.

https://www.fdcartier.ch

This extractivist exploitation is not new. It has endured since the European colonial expansion of 1492. As the Ecuadorian Alberto Costa expresses so well[1]:

‘Extractivism is a form of accumulation that began to be forged on a massive scale 500 years ago (2). With the conquest and colonisation of America, Africa and Asia began the structuring of the world economy: the capitalist system. Since then, this form of extractivist accumulation was determined by the demands of the metropolitan centres of nascent capitalism. Some regions were specialised in the extraction and production of raw materials, that is to say, in primary goods, whilst others assumed the role of manufacturing producers. The former export Nature, the latter import it…’

Extractivism follows the western-centric concept of ‘nature’ to the letter. The problem with the concept of ‘nature’ is that it continues to be a colonial concept, because the word is inscribed in the civilising project of modernity. For example, in other cosmogonies the word ‘nature’ does not appear, does not exist, because the so called ‘nature’ is not an object but a subject, and forms part of life in all its forms (human and non-human). Therefore, the concept of nature is of itself already euro-centric, western-centric and anthropocentric. It is a highly problematic concept because it implies the division between subject (human) and object (nature), where the subject (human) is that which has life, and all other things are nature because they are considered as inert objects. As a result, these forms of life are inferior to the human, and are inscribed in the means-end logic of western rationality, where nature becomes a means to an end. In summary, in the western-centric world-view, the human is conceived as external to nature, and nature as a means to an end. When one accepts this rationality and applies it to the production of technology during the last five centuries of modernity, you have the rationality for the destruction of life. This is because any technology that is created based on a concept of nature understood in this western-centric manner will have inscribed within itself the rationality for the destruction of life, because no thought has been given to the matter of reproducing life. Thus, it is a problematic concept of the colonialism of power, knowledge and being. However, in ‘non-western’ world-views, that do not share the dualistic view of the world but that contain the concept of diversity within uniqueness, you have a completely different view. ‘Nature’ does not exist, there is ‘cosmos’, and we are all within it. Ecology and its forms of life and existence are not therefore a means towards an end, but an end in itself. Any technology that is created based on this principle carries within itself the rationality for the reproduction of life. It is important to note how a cosmological principal has enormous consequences for the production/reproduction of life (human and non-human), for the cosmos and for the planetary ecology. Modernity is a civilising project and, as say the indigenous peoples of the planet, is a civilisation of death, because it has destroyed more forms of life (human and non-human) that any other civilisation in the history of humanity, to the extent that today we do not know if the human species, or other species, will survive western civilisation. The decolonisation of the western-centric view of the cosmos, towards more holistic views, is fundamental for the future of life on the planet. Extractivism is one of those industries that destroy life.

If we observe what occurs in places of extractivist production, in the peripheral spaces considered planetary non-being zones due to being thought of as inhabited by racially inferior subjects, the materiality of domination includes looting and violence. Places of copper extraction like Chile, or of gold extraction like South Africa, are spaces where these extractivist companies destroy the ecology of the area, causing illnesses in the zone’s inhabitants. These companies utilise shameless violence against workers who rebel against them. Meanwhile, in the planetary being zones; inhabited by those considered racially superior beings and, therefore, the fortunate of the earth; the finished objects, that produce death in the places of extraction, are enjoyed. The enjoyment of objects such as copper chips for computers or iphones and gold for jewellery and information conductors, is not within the reach of the human subjects who produce them in the non-being mining zones. Whilst life is produced in one place, the other place produces death. The means of enjoying life in one place has, as a condition of possibility, the destruction of life in the other; the fortunate of the earth live at the expense of the condemned of the earth. Death in one place produces life in the other. This system of global injustice is at the centre of the discussion about extractivism. As Acosta says:

‘Extractivism has been a constant in the economic, social and political life of many countries of the global South. In this way, with varying degrees of intensity, these practices cut across all Latin American countries. This dependency on metropolises, through the extraction and exportation of raw materials, has been maintained practically unaltered until the present day ….Therefore, beyond a few differentiations of greater or lesser importance, the modality of extractivist accumulation seems to be the essence of the productive proposal of neoliberal governments as much as of progressive governments.’

I have cited Alberto Acosta extensively because he has brilliantly synthesised the economics-politics of extractivism. As in the face of racism, in the face of extractivism there are no differences between westernised governments of the left or right. Irrespective of the government of the day, the same practices of exploitation, destruction and violence produced by the multinational extractivists are repeated. In the face of their victims, these governments behave with equal measures of violence. The concept of development forms part of the western-centric logic of left or right, and in the face of this end all measures are justified, including the destruction of and violence against all forms of life (human and non-human) that extractivism produces.

[1] All citations of Alberto Acosta in this text come from the following online article:

Alberto Acosta 2012 ‘Extractivismo y neoextractivismo: dos caras de la misma maldición’ [‘Extractivism and neoextractivism:
two side of the same malediction’] ECO 25/07/2012
https://www.ecoportal.net/temas-especiales/mineria/extractivismo_y_neoextractivismo_dos_caras_de_la_misma_maldicion/

Ingrid Wildi Merino

Ingrid Wildi Merino was born in Santiago de Chile on September, 19th in 1963. In the 80’s she migrated with her family to Switzerland in the midst of the civil-military dictatorship. Since 2016 she lives and works in Santiago de Chile and is artist, author, video-essayist, curator and teacher at different Universities. Her artistic practice is focused on research and involves her fieldwork on the results of colonization and globalization. In her video essays and installations, the artist links interviews and cinematographic sequences of landscapes showing different sociocultural issues, which has led her to develop the notion of Transparencias, concept that philosophically addresses within her pieces of writing and symbolically within her work as visual artist. The Ingrid Wildi Merino’s intercultural and interdisciplinary proposal covers different types of work that maintain a dialogue among different means: video essays, interviews, texts, performances, photography and diagrams which converge in special installations. Her work also adopts the shape of journals, conferences, curatorship research projects and collaboration with collectives and the decolonial network of Santiago de Chile.

Her writing and video-essay work is focused on the research of contemporary migration and globalization issues, from which projects like Portrait Oblicuo (2005), Los invisibles (2007), Dislocación (2010 –2011), Arica y Norte de Chile; No lugar y lugar de todos (2009- 2010), Arquitectura de las Transferencias, Arte, Política y Tecnología (2014- 2017), among others, emerge. In them it is proposed a glance at decolonization not only of peoples but also of knowledge, attitudes and practices willing to decolonize knowledge through a transcultural, transdisciplinary and transgenerational approach for societies.
The work of Ingrid Wildi Merino has been shown in collective international expositions such as Pabellón Suizo at 51ª Bienal Internacional de Venice, Italy (2005); 7ª Bienal de Mercosur – Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil (2009); P.S.1 Contemporary Arts Center, MoMA, New York, United States (2006); Fundación Telefónica, Buenos Aires, Argentina (2006); at Centre Pompidou, Paris, France (2007); Kunsthaus Zürich, Switzerland (2008); SESC Pinheiros, São Paulo, Brazil (2009); Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart, Germany (2012-2013); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo Wilfredo Lam, La Habana, Cuba (2012); Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw, Poland (2014); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, FRAC Lorraine in Metz, France; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Vigo, Spain (2015); Sogn og Fjordane Art Museum, SFKM, Norway (2015); Pecci, Prato, Italy (2016); Centro de Arte Contemporáneo, Cerrillos, Santiago de Chile (2016); among others.

Furthermore, her solo exhibitions highlight “Un Kilómetro de conocimientos invisibles”, Centro Cultural Matucana 100, Santiago, Chile (2019); “Los Invisibles”, Museo de la Memoria y los Derechos Humanos, Santiago, Chile (2019); “Arquitectura de las Transferencias”, D21 Proyectos de Arte, Santiago, Chile (2017); “Historias Breves”, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo y Galería Gabriela Mistral, Santiago, Chile (2007); “Quelquepart” Museo de Bellas Artes, Glarus, Switzerland (2006); “De Palabra en Palabra”, Aargauer Kunsthaus, Argovia, Switzerland and Centre d´Art Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland (2004); among others.
In 2009 Ingrid Wildi Merino received the Meret Oppenheim Award. In 2011 she obtained the Swiss Exhibition Award, for her curatorship in “Dislocación” as the best 2011’s exposition in Switzerland, besides receiving other awards.
Her pieces of writings have been published in numerous books, among them Dislocación, Localización Cultural e Identidad en Tiempos de Globalización (2011) [catalogue], Berna, Switzerland, edited by Hatje Cantz; Interviews, oral History in Contemporary Art (2016), Ecav, école cantonale d’art du valais, Switzerland, and Arquitectura de las Transferencias, Arte, política y tecnología (2017), ABADA, Spain.

Ingrid Wildi Merino graduated in visual arts at Höherer Schle für Gestahltung, Studien Bereich Bildende Kunst Zúrich, Switzerland. She did postgraduate studies at Haute école d´art et design in Geneva, Switzerland and the Master of Arts in Fines Arts Zurich University of the Arts, ZHDK, Zurich, Switzerland. Since 2005 until 2016 she worked as a professor and senior researcher at Haute école d´art et design in Geneva, Switzerland. From 2016 she is professor at Campus Creativo, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago de Chile; at Universidad de Artes, Ciencias y Comunicación (UNIACC), Santiago, Chile; and at Universidad de Chile.

http://www.ingridwildimerino.net

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Zwischen Tradition und Moderne hinterfragt der Künstler Mikail Koçak rastlos das Fortbestehen von kulturellem Erbe wie auch multiple Identitäten, die aus dem Exil entstanden sind. Das Ergebnis seiner Bemühungen zur Rückeroberung dieses Erbes sind Installationen, die narrative Möglichkeiten wecken und Verbindungen zwischen seinen beiden Kulturen, der östlichen und der westlichen, knüpfen. Der «Kiosk», der ursprünglich aus dem Mittleren Osten stammt und im 17. Jahrhundert in den Westen gebracht wurde, ist ein dem Vergnügen gewidmetes Architekturelement. Es handelt sich um ein Belvedere oder einen kleinen Gartenpavillion, der auf mehreren Seiten geöffnet und überdacht ist. Sein Name ist aus dem Persischen Kūšk (Palast) und dem Türkischen Köşk (Pavillon oder Schloss) abgeleitet, seine Verwendung hat sich jedoch im Laufe der Zeit häufig gewandelt. Mikail Koçak bedient sich für seine Ausstellung im Kunstraum Juraplatz mit Interesse dieses formbaren Wortes in seiner Muttersprache (Türkisch) und seiner Nationalsprache (Französisch). Durch die Überlagerung der Ufer des Bosporus und der Strassen von Biel, von zwei Kontinenten und zwei Kulturen durch Fiktionen, möchte der Künstler einen Chamäleon-Ort schaffen.

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Der in Biel wohnhafte Künstler Janosch Perler hat die Instagram Residency Visarte Biel/Bienne Anfang Jahr eröffnet und ist auf der digitalen Plattform noch bis am 31.3.2022 aktiv. Als Finissage und Rückkehr in den physischen Raum wird er einige der veröffentlichten Arbeiten im Public Art Space JURAPLATZ in der Altstadt Biel zeigen.

FR
L’artiste biennois Janosch Perler a commencé son Instagram Residency Visarte Biel/Bienne au début de cette année et y travaille encore jusqu’à fin mars. Pour le finissage de ce projet et marquer son retour dans l’espace physique, il montrera quelques travaux dans l’espace JURAPLATZ en Vieille ville de Bienne.

www.janosch-perler.ch

Seit über 50 Jahren arbeitet der Künstler Parzival mit der Sprache Esperanto. Sie dient ihm als verbindendes Element in seinem Schaffen. Sein neuestes Work-in-Progress-Projekt ist der Weltwährungskiosk Juraplatz. Parzivals Werk besteht darin, aktuelle Zeitungen mit Fotos und Texten in Esperanto zu bearbeiten. Auf diese Weise kreiert er neue Esperanto-Kurse, die er auch im Kunstraum Juraplatz durchführt. Ausserdem präsentiert Parzival, der zwischen Biel und Sonceboz zuhause ist, eine neuartige, von ihm selbst geschaffene Weltwährung: den Espero. Er soll unabhängig als einheitliche Währung für den Weltfrieden fungieren und damit ähnlich wie die Esperanto-Sprache als verbindendes Element zwischen den Nationen wirken. Parzival ist überzeugt, dass sich die Armeen der Welt besser verstehen, wenn sie dieselbe Sprache sprechen - und dass dies der weltweiten Abrüstung dient. Dies ist Teil seiner Mission, die er Tag für Tag, Wort für Wort als Künstler, Soldat und Arbeiter erfüllt.

Throughout his paintings, Salvatore, who grew up in Lucan in the suburbs of Dublin in a one-parent family, celebrates the importance of the people around him: whether they be family, friends, or work peers. Me being an arse broadens Salvatore of Lucan’s oeuvre, expanding the emotional resonance of his work into social commentary through using his own self-image to carry the message across. Via his own self-depreciation, Salvatore of Lucan highlights destructive systematic social behaviour.

Me being an arse is a portrait of Salvatore of Lucan and his girlfriend. The composition, symbolically split in two, illustrates cyclical mistakes in relationships; particularly relationships rooted in alcohol dependence. Although clearly pointing at alcohol as the catalyst dividing the couple, colour and style choices within the artwork allude to a wider gamut of substances at play more broadly in society.

Me being an arse will proudly have its first exhibition at Public Art Space Juraplatz in the centre of the city of Biel, a public art venue founded in 2010. Recognising that stained glass is most often commissioned for sacred or private settings, the artist Salvatore of Lucan and curator Emer Lynch take a fresh approach to this glass commission; embracing experimentation with the material, and taking risks with the public’s perception of what constitutes worthy subject-matter and presentation style. This exhibition seeks to explore and dissolve existing hierarchies within the medium. Salvatore of Lucan is mixed race and as the representation of People of Colour is lacking in glass fields in particular (in 2020, from five significant American non-profit organisations that serve and educate the glass community, only 2% of the board members, trustees, fellows and staff are BIPOC individuals*). Salvatore of Lucan’s contribution to the field, creating this new work in 2021, is significant. Premiering this piece at Public Art Space Juraplatz deliberately reduces the perception of stained glass as sacred or private, and contextualises it within the realm of public space and free access to art. Later in December 2021 the artwork will travel to Ireland for further exhibitions within non-tradition spaces in Dublin.

There is a strong collaborative element to this artwork’s production. Salvatore of Lucan worked especially closely with two expert artisans at Derix Glass Studios in Germany: master glass painter Bärbel Gottschling-Djahandoust and master gläser Roland Prahl. A production residency at Derix Glass Studios was an opportunity for Salvatore of Lucan to further develop his singular painting style; to strengthen his already deep tacit knowledge of painting through acquiring new skills in specialist glass techniques grisaille and colour etching.

*reference from Matthew Day Perez’s article Counted in ‘The Urban Glass Quarterly’, Fall 2020

Me being an arse by Salvatore of Lucan at Public Art Space Juraplatz is kindly supported by Culture Ireland. Curated by Emer Lynch. Commissioned by Imagining Sustainable Glass Network Europe. Funded by the Arts Council of Ireland and South Dublin County Council.

Cristina De Middel investigates photography’s ambiguous relationship to truth. Blending documentary and conceptual photographic practices, she plays with reconstructions and archetypes in order to build a more layered understanding of the subjects she approaches. Working from the premise that mass media is reducing our real understanding of the world we live in, De Middel responds to an urgency to re-imagine tired aesthetic tropes and insert opinion in place of facts.

Her impulse for an unconventional angle developed after a 10-year career as a photojournalist when De Middel stepped outside of straight documentary and produced the acclaimed series The Afronauts (2012). It explored the history of a failed space program in Zambia in the 1960s through staged reenactments of obscure narratives, challenging the traditional depiction of the African continent.

http://www.lademiddel.com

In conjunction with the company Google, Com&Com has realized a video that simulates a flight over a 3-D model of the Swiss Alps, using, as well as esthetics, the technology of Google Earth. Running across this virtual journey through a mountain region that has mythical and auratic connotations, and draws on notions such as authenticity, infinity and Swiss identity, there is the sentence “It’s so superficial, but it’s true,” taken from Com&Com’s collection of texts and aphorisms. This confession of culture industry – disturbing, irritating and forcefully dragging attention away from the timelessness of the Alps where, to all intents and purposes, the Aristotelian notion of “Being” as such seems to materialize – is committed to the paradox logic of Andy Warhol: to the Pop artist who promoted the transfiguration of the (glamorous) visual surface as conveyed by (virtual) media (Arthur C. Danto).

Com&Com’s sentence, emblazoned on a banner, moves in the wind in front of the edge of the snow-covered mountain range between Wetterhorn (3701 m) and Schreckhorn (4078 m), almost as if carved into the mountain formation. In this way the first part of the sentence (“it’s so superficial“) and the second one (“but it’s true“) are experienced performatively, i.e. as the result of a self-determined act, or the act of cartographic reading, as it were. And it comes with the barbs of dialectics: The sentence is broken into two by the angle of the mountain range in such a way that the parts are to each other as thesis and anti-thesis. Com&Com, however, refuse to offer a synthesis to this “one single reality” according to Schelling’s philosophy of identity, or rather, they subject it to an (ironized) ambiguity. An ambiguity that, on the one hand, addresses the process contained in the word “shifting,” but which also highlights the critical condition of (national) representations of identity, image, art and reality in a globalized and virtual world as experienced in today’s media society. This in fact has been a central theme in Com&Com’s work since 1997 (cf. C-Files: Tell Saga [2000], Side by Side [2002], Mocmoc [2003], Gugusdada [2004).

A reduced, contemplative and atmospheric soundtrack, composed by Mario Marchisella (audioscope), accompanies the flight simulation video. In addition to the video, Com&Com also produced a large-scale picture cycle (silk screen printing on canvas) consisting of stills taken from their virtual mountain world. By taking these images out of their normal digital context and elevating them to the status of oil and landscape painting, the world of Google Earth undergoes additional transformation (cf. The Big One [2006]. Thus, as far as the artists’ most recent body of works called Google Earth Art is concerned, factors such as unambiguous recognition, analogy, and authenticity are dependent on questions of standpoint or medium and are the result thereof. They emerge as consequences of medial and esthetic strategies and refer to the open and therefore precarious state of the (representational) term “image,” as art and product of technical, medial and cultural matters.
Last but not least, this ambiguity might again refer to an adoration directed towards the surface expressed in Warhol’s “philosophy of the commmonplace” – and thus imply homage to the Old Master who has granted these terms and qualities their claim for truth and veracity that has been contested ever since Plato.

Text by Kornelia Imesch

Guadalupe Ruiz (CH), born in 1978 in Bogotá, lives and works in Biel/Bienne. She studied at ECAL, Lausanne, HGKZ, Zurich and obtained a Master in Fine Arts at the FHNW, Basel in 2019. She has had solo exhibitions at Photoforum Pasquart and Lokal-int, Biel/Bienne, Centre de la Photographie, Geneva, Grand Palais, Bern, as well as international exhibitions. In 2015 she printed and self-published the acclaimed artist’s book Kleine Fotoenzyklopädie.

www.cargocollective.com/lupita

Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography
Cracks
Curated by Sarah Girard

Identity crises, political instabilities, ecological transitions, economic restructurings – the photographers and projects exhibited in the 24th edition of the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography create spaces to reflect about the implications of the ruptures that preoccupy our societies today. At a time when our political systems are in crisis, debates about coexistence are rising, protests are ringing out across the globe and when social networks provoke a sense of community as well as physical isolation, the festival offers a face-to-face encounter with contemporary images. This year’s edition aims to question our collective unconscious, and perhaps, in a climate of breakdown, find a collective awareness. Because at last, is it not from the cracks and gaps that the decisive moment emerges?
Our itinerary through the city of Biel/Bienne features more than 20 exhibitions at various venues. Building on new collaborations, the festival launches two special projects to be discovered as part of the exhibition program: the Enquête photographique Jura bernois and the Taurus Prize for Visual Arts. Moreover, the Biel/Bienne Festival of Photography will be enlivened by meetings, performances, radio programmes and workshops.

The proposal of this project is consistent with the direction of the artistic works and theoretical research that I have undertaken throughout my trajectory as an artist; processes that have been shaped by my social, cultural and political memory. My reflection about the north of Chile, the place where my mother lived and where large amounts of copper are extracted, led me to investigate the historical, theoretical and scientific antecedents represented by different authors who have worked on the subject matter of copper and civilizing movements, some affected by, and others caused by, the processes of colonization and modernization.

Ingrid Wildi Merino

https://artishockrevista.com/2017/06/20/ingrid-wildi-merino-entrevista/

https://www.academia.edu/35946196/Arquitectura

Suite de PB PEPPER'S BUOY, où une bouée "spectre de Pepper" semblait flotter au dessus de la houle et de PB BOY'S BUOY où un jouet/bouée de secours flottait devant l'image d'une aube radieuse, on a cette fois l'image complète d'après Pieter Brueghel, et devant l'image un hélicotère jouet REGA "vole" en mode recherche.

Isaac Newton's achievements have only been possible because he built on earlier discoveries by other researchers. "If I have looked further, it is also because I stand on the shoulders of giants". He quavered a saying from the 12th century. But in fact the whole life depends on remakes. Our cells copy themselves and insert themselves to create new, identical cells. This process, known as mitosis, allows all organisms to grow, develop and heal. Without this process, we would still be single-celled organisms. Remakes cultivate life. Culture is built on copy-paste.

In the final issue for 2020, we invite our artists_ to copy and paste material from other artists or even quote and remake their own material.

Artists: Antoine Zivelonghi, Samuel Müller and Mor Dovrat. With Fiona Vuilleumier (Biel) as guest.

Installation

Warten Sie auf den Bus?

An der Bushaltestelle am Juraplatz erscheinen Fragen zur Zeit, die im Kunstraum eingeblendet werden, während man auf den Bus wartet, der alle 11 Minuten kommt.

Wie viel Zeit bleibt uns, um dieses Werk zu besichtigen, wie viele und welche Fragen aus der Projektion bekommen wir zu sehen? Gibt es eine Frage, die mich noch im Bus beschäftigt, oder mich ihn gar verpassen lässt? Die Fragen zur Zeit konfrontieren uns mit unserer Wartesituation, mit verschiedenen Arten von «Warten», die unsere Zeit im Leben immer wieder in Anspruch nehmen.

Der Kunstraum Juraplatz projiziert die Fragen während der ganzen Nacht – bis der Tag anbricht.

Installation

Vous attendez le bus ?

À l'arrêt de bus sur la Juraplatz, des questions sur le temps apparaissent, qui sont affichées dans l'espace d'art pendant que vous attendez le bus, qui passe toutes les 11 minutes.

De combien de temps disposons-nous pour voir cette œuvre, combien et quelles questions de la projection allons-nous voir ? Y a-t-il une question qui m'occupe encore dans le bus, ou qui me fait même manquer le bus ? Les questions sur le temps nous confrontent à notre situation d'attente, à différentes sortes d'"attente" qui nous prennent du temps dans la vie, encore et encore.

Le Kunstraum Juraplatz projette les questions tout au long de la nuit - jusqu'au lever du jour.

The world that has stopped feels especially challenging for creative communities and the artists of projects similar to Nine Dragon Heads (NDH) working in post-studio, experimental or performative modes of art-practice whose activity and creative impulse has always been linked to travel, close contact with nature, researches, exhibitions, and events at various corners of the world and inspirational encounters with thought-provoking people and places.

Art is the best means to reflect on or at least represent emotions, feelings, and thoughts in every possible life situation, so in current lockdown as well. The project “Linked Objects” is an offer to meditate on our interconnectedness in times of isolation and forceful separation in the condition similar to what German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers calls a limit situation. The term describes the situations that disturb us, force us towards somewhat alternative self-identifications, which eliminates us from social connections, obliges us to survive and makes us seek alarming ways of communication. In the electronic world, on the other hand, the linked object is an object such as a graphic etc., which is included within a document in such a way that it is linked to the source file, so that whenever the source changes, the object automatically updates.

Performances
Susanne Muller / Calculated Risk
Daniela de Madalenna / Art is about gardening

Artists
Ali Bramwell (NZ), Alois Schild (AT), Antti Tenetz (FI), Biro Jozsef (HU), Bruce Allan (GB), Brigitte & Gabriela (AT), Channa Boon (NL), Christophe Doucet (FR), Daniela de Maddalena (CH), Denizhan Ozer (TK), Diek Grobler (ZA), Fred Luide (CH), Gabriel Adams (US), Gordana Andjelic (B&H), Harold de Bree (NL), Hannes Egger (IT), Iliko Zautashvili (GE), Ingrid Rollema (HL), Jason Hawkes (AU), Jayne Dyer (PT) Jessy Theo Rahman (SR), Josephine Turalba (PH), Kelli Sharp (AU), Lois Schenk(AU), Magda Guruli(GE), Max Buhlmann(CH), Mike Watson & Jussi (IT/FI), Nandin Edrene (MO), Oona Hyland(IR), Pang Hyosung(KR), Paul Donker Duyvis(NL), Park Byounguk (KR), Pietertje V. Splunter (NL), Phil Dadson (NZ), Rosh Abdelfatah (SY), So Young(KR), Susanne Muller CH), Thom Vink (NL),Yoko Kajio (JP)

The whole together "one night stand" will be shared on instagram stories from both sides (Mexico City and Biel/Bienne) with masks filters of the avatar's mask of Quietapina designed by Alonso Cedillo in México Usually Juraplatz shows works confined in the former kiosk area , this time the event will happen in the public space of the bus station on the bench, where people are used to wait for the bus, a space left for individual intern voices. As the participation of the artist in the group show in Mexico will end on the 2nd of august, Juraplatz TERAPÍA will format this ritual as a "finissage" on the 1st of august in Biel. This edition of Juraplatz is like a flash extension between 2 different silences that create and leave a "ruptura" in real time.

DE
Die Serie "Insect" des Schweizer Künstlers Kurt Caviezel zeigt uns durch die Linse von Überwachungskameras verschiedene Ecken der Welt. In den festgehaltenen Momenten sind es nicht – wie normalerweise üblich Menschen, die ins Bild geraten, sondern Insekten. Dieses scheinbare Hindernis ist das grundlegende Element dieser Serie: Innerhalb der gefilmten Landschaft wird das Insekt zum zentralen Objekt. Diese gezeigten Fragmente eines großen Netzwerks des globalen Überwachungssystems erinnern uns an die futuristischen Visionen von George Orwell und Aldous Huxley , in welchen die Menschen als "social insects" definiert werden.

DE
Im Offspace JURAPLATZ wird die Videoarbeit "Der Gruss" der Künstlerin Adela Picón präsentiert. Menschen begegnen sich, grüßen und umarmen sich, bis eine Person mit der anderen verschmilzt und nur noch die weisse Leinwand übrig bleibt. Adela Picón entwickelte die Arbeit "Der Gruss" für eine umfangreiche Ausstellung im Historischen Museum von Sant Feliu de Guixols (Katalonien) in Zusammenarbeit mit der Bevölkerung der Stadt.
Eine Umarmung oder ein Händedruck zwischen Einwanderern und Einheimischen machen "Der Gruß" zu einem Teil eines politischen Werkes, das auf Tradition, Vergangenheit, Akzeptanz und Integration fokussiert ist.
Im Offspace Juraplatz wird die Videoarbeit rekontextualisiert in Zeiten des "verbotenen Grusses“ und nimmt damit eine neue Form und eine neue Bedeutung an.

PB : pour Pieter Brueghel l'Ancien, à qui j'emprunte des morceaux d'image.
Part one: PEPPERS'BUOY (décembre 2019)
Part three: ICARUS'BUOY (mars 2020)

DE
Video Dokumentation: Robert Walser-Sculpture, ein Präsenz- und Produktionsprojekt von Thomas Hirschhorn im Rahmen der 13. Ausgabe der Schweizerischen Plastikausstellung in Biel/ Schweiz (15.6.–8.9.2019). Die Robert Walser- Sculpture zu Ehren des in Biel geborenen Schweizer Schriftstellers ist eine 86 Tage dauernde Erfahrungsplattform bestehend aus über 35 täglichen Ereignissen, welche in Kooperation mit der Bieler Bevölkerung entwickelt wurden. Drei Jahre lang wurde diese feinmaschige Präsenz- und Produktionsskulptur entlang den komplexen Themenbereichen von Robert Walser entwickelt.

"Le fantôme de Pepper ou spectre de Pepper, en anglais Pepper's ghost, connu également sous le nom de fantôme de Dircks, est une technique d'illusion d'optique utilisée dans les représentations scéniques (théâtre, concerts, meetings), les châteaux hantés et dans certains tours de magie. Le nom de cette méthode est tiré du nom de John Henry Pepper, qui a popularisé cet effet." (Wikipedia)

PB : pour Pieter Brueghel l'Ancien, à qui j'emprunte des morceaux d'image.

En 2020 les installations 2 et 3 de la trilogie seront montrées dans ce même cadre

Part two: BOYS'BUOY
Part three: ICARUS'BUOY

The work Neutral Nations was created for the project "Art Politics - Border crossing - Onsaemiro" organized by Shuroop Group from the city of Suwon and the international environmental art symposium Nine Dragon Heads. The research destination of the project is the DMZ (The Demilitarized Zone ), a 4 km wide, 250 km long buffer zone that divides Korea into two almost even parts. It was created on July 27, 1953, after the agreement between North Korea, China, and the UN Command.

Magda Guruli, Curator

This year’s edition will present works of photography that examine the often insidious overflows into the private sphere, the political excesses that confront humanity, our technological frenzy and the extreme exploitation of essential resources in contemporary society. The photographic image is a reflection of our practices: today it gets swept along in the flow of data, and like the individual it sometimes becomes unreadable or invisible. The exhibitions will help to make the image re-emerge, bringing to the surface the societal contradictions that it sometimes depicts and will let the photograph leave its frame to set the viewer’s thoughts in motion.

DE
TEK, TO und NIK sind drei naturbelassene, sechs bis elf Tonnen schwere Verrucano-Steine aus dem UNESCO-Welterbe Tektonikarena Sardona, das letztes Jahr sein 10-jähriges Jubiläum feierte.
TEK steht für Glarus, TO repräsentiert St.Gallen und NIK verkörpert Graubünden - über alle diese Kantone erstreckt sich das Welterbe.

Die drei Steine tourten während dem gesamten Jubiläumsjahr 2018 durch die Schweiz und besuchten dabei mehrere andere UNESCO-Welterbestätten. Konzipiert wurde die Aktion vom Künstlerduo Com&Com (Johannes M. Hedinger, Marcus Gossolt).

In this sense, this tool presents a moral and ethical conflict – because it opposes power-sharing. A real exchange during the shooting between the user and the other must be rethought. We must take into consideration the technological tool as an actor. It's time to divest this image production tool of its status as a phallus, weapon and image production machine and turn this ‘darkroom’ into a space of negotiation, where everyone is on a equal footing. Dorothée Elisa Baumann.

DE
Wie ein mächtiger Eisberg treibt eine aus transparentem PET-Material zusammengeklebte Struktur auf dem Wasser. Begleitet von mystischem Sirenengesang der Innerrhoderin Karin Streule, folgt die Kamera, knapp über und unter der Wasseroberfläche, den Windungen des Polyesterkonstruktes. Wie die mythischen Mischwesen mit göttlicher Stimme die Seefahrer in die Klippen lockten und scheitern liessen, scheinen die sphärischen Klänge in der Videoarbeit Seeplastik (2010) die Gefahren heutiger Umweltschadstoffe und das Ungleichgewicht des ökologischen Systems zu beschwören.

Über Jahre hat Stefan Rohner Verbrauchsmaterial aus Kunststoff gesammelt, fasziniert von der Beschaffenheit von Material und Form. Entstanden ist ein überdimensioniertes und molekülartiges Gebilde, das im Plastikzeitalter an die Problematik treibender Abfallpartikel auf den Weltozeanen gemahnt. Die Arbeit Seeplastik zitiert mit Humor und Leichtigkeit eine künstliche (Sirenen-)Insel. Wie ein hell leuchtender Engel breitet in Seeplastik ein schwebender Plastikkörper seine Flügel über die Errungenschaften aus organischem Polymer – ein Stoff, der im Alltag fast nicht mehr wegzudenken ist. Nadia Veronese

DE
Hut ab ist eine Hommage der Galerie Juraplatz an den Bieler Künstler und jahrelangen Visarte-Präsidenten Robert Schüll. Die Installation beinhaltet gegen Tausend Fotos, in einem Videofilm animiert, sowie 12 Hüte von Robert Schüll, die Hildegard Lanz für die Ausstellung zur Verfügung gestellt hat.

The collection was clandestinely downloaded after this unexpected encounter while walking in the forest. The collection delivers a series of intimate images of forest life by day and night across the spectrum of autumn, winter, and spring, where wildlife such as deer, raccoon, rabbit, bobcat, and fox wander freely. The images cross from being literal and practical studies for hunting, as the images are accompanied by accurate time signatures and phases of the moon, to evoking scenes which call to mind signs and symbols of the occult, visually drawing on the presence of omens and visions of animal mythologies.

The main exhibition space of Taste of Tea is two passenger trains standing at platform at the famous Istanbul Haydarpasa Terminal, in Kadikoy. Another railway station falls into the Nine Dragon Heads route of research and activity -Istanbul Sirkeci Terminal, the eastern terminus of the Orient Express, the world famous long- distance passenger train from Paris to Istanbul, connecting Europe with Asia.

The majority of organizational functions within Taste of Tea are implemented directly by Nine Dragon Heads with directorial overview and coordination provided by the project’s artistic director and founder of Nine Dragon Heads Park, Byoung Uk. Taste of Tea is co-curated by Magda Guruli, independent curator from Tbilisi, Georgia and Istanbul based artist Denizhan Özer.

Nine Dragon Heads Artists: Ali Bramwell (NZ), Alois Schild (AT), Antti Tenetz (NL), Asli Ozok (TR), Bedri Baykam (TR), Christophe Doucet (FR), Daniela de Maddalena (CH), Denizhan Özer (TR), Enrique Muñoz García (RCH/CH), Eun Su Lim (KR) Gabriel Edward Adams (USA/NZ), Gordana Andjelic Galic (B&H), Harold de Bree (NL), Iliko Zautashvili (GE), IMPLUSE (KR), Jessy Theo Rahman (NL), Kazunori Kitazawa (JP), Kelly Sharp (AU), Kim Jae Nam (KR), Kim Jai Kwan (KR), Lee Lee Nam (KR), Light House (KR), Pang Hyo Sung (KR), Serdal Kesgin (TR), Seren Ceren Asyali (TR), Shin Yong Gu (KR), Sim Jea Bun (KR), Suh Yoon Hee (KR), Susanne Muller (CH),Yoo Joung Hye (KR).

Haydarpaşa Train Station
Haydarpaşa Gar Sk. Kadıköy, İstanbul

In cooperation with Biel based institutions such as the Stadttheater (Municipal theater), the HKB (Bern University of the Arts), Spectacles Français (French theater), the Gewölbe Galerie, "Le Singe" nightclub, Café Littéraire, the town church, and other various shops and restaurants, we put together a varied culinary and cultural program, for both young and old, inspiring a collective jaunt to Biel's old town on October 22nd, 2016.

DEUTSCH

Das Fragefestival in der Bieler Altstadt bringt die grossen Fragen des Lebens auf die Strassen. Während 12 Stunden bietet die «Nacht der 1000 Fragen» eine Plattform, um sich Gedanken zu machen, um sich auszutauschen, um zuzuhören und um neugierig zu sein.

In Zusammenarbeit mit in Biel angesiedelten Institutionen wie dem Stadttheater, der HKB, den Spectacles Français, der Gewölbegalerie, dem Club le Singe, dem Café Littéraire, der Stadtkirche und verschiedenen Läden und Restaurants stellen wir ein abwechslungsreiches kulturell-kulinarisches Programm auf die Beine, das Gross und Klein animiert, am 22. Oktober 2016 in die Bieler Altstadt zu pilgern.

In this video performance, the artist takes us with her camera up and under the water, which flows through the old town of Biel/Bienne. In several works by susanne muller, water is a central and autobiographical issue.

The photographers participating in this exhibition are: Claire Lawrie, James Morgan, Sean Metelerkamp, Anne Barlinckhoff, Sophie Gammand, Pablo Maestres, Delphine Blast, Nicole de Khors, Joshua Haunschild, Ebony Finck, Jiayi Liu, Ben Millar Cole, Aleksei Kazantsev, Jakub Pasierkiewicz, Francesco Merlini, Keisuke Otobe, Ottavia Poli, Andrea Hamilton, Zora J Murff, Maciej Staszkiewicz, Anton Caro, Annelie Vandendael, Suzanne Engelberg, Benjamin Hampson, Gabriele Rossi, David Severn, Christoph Soeder, Melanie Jüngling, Zhao Qian, Pau Buscató, Lisa Shalom, Emmanuelle Andrianjafy, Florian Grosse, Ali Kate Cherkis, Sirasit Praneenij, Cydney Holm, Hana Knizova, Hailey Ford, Nelum Francesca Caramini, Mary Kang, Aaron Turner, Rodrigo di Sciascio, Caron Che, Lindsay Keys, Regis Golay, Lauren Damaskinos, Allyson Pinon, Thomas Morel-Fort, Shari Yantra Maracci, Andrea Harnick Tuchman, Emily Grunfeld, Adrien Leavitt, Txomin Txueka, Benjamin Perry, Maria Hibou, Aisha Palmitessa, Michelle Bours, Monika Marion, Shirren Lim, Marianne Ingelby, Simon Aprile, Andy Melendez, Robin Butter, Tahir Ün, Michael Anaya, Francesca Remorini, Michelle Bruzzese, Iris Hassid Segal, Diana Duplakova, Marta Corada, ElementWo, Valeria Scrilatti, Tariq Zaidi, Alessio Zemoz, Joëlle de Vries, Krzysztof Szczurek, Alex Wong, Miisha Ayana Nash, Alice Mann, Andrea Eichenberger, Alice de Kruijs, Nicole Moserle, Celine Meunier, Emanuele Camerini, Giorgio Cecca, Guillaume Tomasi, Isabella Stähl, Julia de Cooker, Katie Chasteen, Kyler Zeleny, Justine Tjallinks, Leslie Hall Brown, Kentaro Mori, Nicola Jayne Maskrey, Oliver Remera, Olympe Tits, Poem Baker and Tereza Cervenova.

Nine Dragon Heads is an interdisciplinary platform where artists from across the 5 continents work in locations that may be environmentally, economically or politically troubled, following important cultural, historical and geopolitical routes. Initiated in South Korea in 1995 in response to the destruction of an important historical site, Nine Dragon Heads has evolved to address varying crises and transitory situations in localized and situation-specific ways. "Jump into the Unknown” is organized in collaboration with the Venice based Nuova Icona – “associazione culturale per le arti”, a non-profit cultural association, founded in Venice in 1993, and dedicated to the support and promotion of contemporary visual arts. The project is commissioned by Magda Guruli (Georgia), Vittorio Urbani (Italy) and Kim Jae Kwan (S.Korea). The artistic director of "Jump into the Unknown” is Park Byoung Uk, an initiator, producer and artist based in South Korea. He is the founder and creative force behind Nine Dragon Heads.

"Nine Dragon Heads” Artists: Ali Bramwell (NZ), Alois Schild (AT), Bedri Baykam (TR), Channa Boon (NL), Charlotte Parallel (NZ), Choi, Ik Gyu (KR), Christophe Doucet (FR), Denizhan Özer (TR), Diek Grobler (ZA), Enrique Muñoz García (RCH/CH), Erika Batdorf (CA), Gabriel Edward Adams (USA), Goo, Sung Kyun (KR), Gordana Andjelic Galic (BA), Iliko Zautashvili (GE), Jusuf Hadžifejzović (BA), Kazunori Kitazawa (JP), Kim, Dong Young (KR), Lim, Hyun Lak (KR), Phil Dadson (NZ), Seo, Bak Ei (KR), Sim, Jea Bun (KR), Song, Dae Seop (KR), Suh, Yoon Hee (KR), Susanne Muller (CH), Yoo, Joung Hye (KR), Yoola, Shin (KR). Aleksandra Janik & Magdalena Hlawacz (PL), Anna-Lea Kopperi & Heini Nieminen (FI). Harold de Bree (NL) & Mike Watson (IT), Yoko Kajio & Jason Hawkes (AU), Quartair Group (NL) - Geeske Harting, Jessy Theo Rahman, Pietertje van Splunter, Thom Vink."

The documentary research was originally made for the project K-Objekt by Enrique Muñoz García. K-Objekt (Kantonale Objekt) are buildings worth of protection and preservation. Old photos, drawings, architectural plans and postcards were then collected for the ancient building overlooking the square.
Juraplatz was once the center of the city Biel/Bienne, this explains the amount of historical documents still available.

The experience and understanding of ones self awareness and of the opposition are done through reflections, overlaying and duplication to lead to an existential path.

Peter Začek - born 1962 in Vienna and lives and works in Biel / CH. Apprenticeship as a draftsman. Independent artist ever since. Performances and exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad.

Jörg Köppl - born 1964 in Baden, lives and works in Zurich / CH. Studied Fine Arts at ZHdK Zurich. Independent artist since 1989. Performances and exhibitions in Switzerland and abroad.

The judging panel for the year was composed of 12 globally acclaimed photographers who've won numerous awards such as Hasselblad Masters, WPO, PDN, American Photo and IPA. This exhibition showcases their 24 winning images alongside a selection of hand-picked honorary mentions.

The photographers participating in this exhibition are: Vici Watkins, Giovanna del Sarto, Brenda Vaiani, Katja Kremenic, Mitran Kaul, Miska Draskoczy, Aziza Vasco, Judith Hornbogen, Raki Nikahetiya, Lisa Allen, Kristina Petrosiute, Victoria Trevino, Bruna Valenca, BriAnne Wills, Anna Sowul, Giulia Bersani, Michael Dietrich, Rafael Hernandez, Femke Boermans, Neville Jones, Roza Vulf, Adam Fish, Yovcho Gorchev, Judy Mauer, Sergio Carbajo, Jeff Blucher, Danielle Falknor, Sven Loach, Sandro Tedde, Christina Venedict, Kuo Yun Chien, Yuri Van Geenen, Cesar Rodriguez, Robb Klassen, David Brunetti, Cecilie Smith Oedegaard, Rob Blews, Felicia Simion, Luigi Avantaggiato, Anthony Cassell, Luisa Carcavale, David Steinboim, Elena Fortunati, Dipanjan Mitra, Ariana Gomez, Emma McEvoy, Kris Arzadun, Jeff Seltzer, Shirren Lim, AnnaLaura Masciave, Anna di Prospero, Daniel Van Moll, Harry Benhaiem, Marco Enia and Jonathan Pozniak.

Timo Arnall`s short film gives us a glimpse of how robots and machines see the world and create meaning from their limited perspectives. Computer vision is sensitive to qualities in moving images that may be very different from what human vision perceives. These images give us a glimpse of how algorithms are beginning to make some tiny, fractional sense out of our world.
Timo Arnall (1976 London, United Kingdom) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. A designer concerned with near-future technology and culture, Timo Arnall works with digital products, services and visualisations, predominantly through directing and making films. He is a research fellow at the Oslo School of Architecture & Design and creative director at BERG in London.

In this work Joan Fontcuberta has deliberately "mis-constructed" model planes with all the original parts, transforming them into new "poetic space objects“. As in other works by Joan Fontcuberta, historical and political facts are questioned and manipulated through imagination, artifice and humor.

Joan Fontcuberta was born in 1955 in Barcelona, where he continues to live and work. He has exhibited extensively in museums and galleries in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. His work is found in numerous institutions, including the New York Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

In this work, Enrique Muñoz García explores an intimate moment in the daily lives of each and every person: the time spent frenetically zapping between television channels. To do this, he filmed himself along with a number of acquaintances living abroad, from Switzerland to Chile and Spain. The intimacy of the sequences is heightened by virtue of the protagonists being naked, allowing theirskin to reflect the colours emitted by the screen. Out of aestheticism and a desire for authenticity, the photographer ruled out the possibility of enhancing the resolution of the sequences. Indeed, the artist’s primary concern is to reveal the magic in reality. According to Enrique Muñoz García, “Zapping” is to be understood as a portrait of a single person, depicted through a multiplicity of individuals. Emily Fayet

The Symposium was characterised by two major parameters. First, it took place in a dynamic town of about 50 000 inhabitants (which is for small Switzerland quite a lot) and second in direct contact with the lake of Biel/Bienne, the 5000 year old history of settlement in the area and its huge vineyards along the not very high chain of mountains called Jura.
An urban environment allowed the Symposium to have lively contact with the population, the local art scene and art students. The traditional focus of the Nine Dragon Heads Symposia on performance allowed many cultural exchanges beyond words.

The event began already on the first evening with a Vernissage at Art-Etage, where the 25 artists showed small works that introduced them to the Symposium community. The Mayor of Biel/Bienne welcomed the Nine Dragon Heads from all 5 continents and Park Byoung Uk expressed his gratitude of being invited to Switzerland. Background information and three performances combined the production of visual works and moving artistic action. Annelise Zwez

Nine Dragon Heads Artists: Ali Bramwell(NZ), Alois Schild(A), Adriano Gon(I), Bruce Allan(GB), Bernhard Gerber(CH), Christoph Doucet(F), Daniela de Maddalena(CH), Diek Grobler(RSA), Enrique Muñoz García(CL), Gabriel Adams(NZ/USA), Gordana Andjelic Galic(BIH), Harold de Bree(NL), illiko Zautashvili(GEO), Jessy Rahman(SUR), Magda Guruli(GEO), Max Bühlman(CH), Inbok Trobos(A/ROK), Pang Hyo-Sung(ROK), Paul Donker Duyvis(NL), Philip Dadson(NZ), Park Byoung Uk(ROK), susanne muller(CH), Ursula Stalder(CH), Yoo Joung Hye(ROK), Yoko Kajio(AU/JP), Marinda du Toit(RSA).

Yet time has a disconcerting and paradoxical nature, for in photography, in theory, nothing should move or be fluid. Thus, unsurprisingly, time has become the subject of a number of exhibitions in recent years, including Breathless! Photography and Time in London in 1999 and in 2010 Entretiempos at PHotoEspaña and the Darmstädter Tage der Fotografie in Germany under the title "Jetzt – die erzählte Zeit". In an age when the qualities of mobility, immediacy and simultaneity have come to define a significant portion of our lifestyles, photography is no longer necessarily bound to the here and now. Photographic works, often hybrid in form, are creating new possibilities and lexicons in order to constitute authentic expressions of contemporaneousness.

Schwarzes Licht
Large leaves of immaculate whiteness are suspended on white walls. Neons emitting a black lightare buzzing on the roof. As the hours pass and the darkness intensifies, the light from the tubes begins to dominate and to gradually reveal serigraphs. Portraits of drug addicts begin to appearopposite the solanaceous plants. The images in "Schwarzes Licht" fluctuate between presence and absence. The cycle of appearanceand disappearance varies according to the nature and intensity of the light source. The spectator's visual experience is therefore subject to time, both its duration and in a meteorological sense.While visible at night, these human and vegetal bodies vanish in the daylight. This inversion of visibility/invisibility and day/night refers directly to the opposition of life/death. These latent imagesreveal themselves to those patient enough to wait for them – or they surprise those who aren't expecting to see them. In her artistic approach, Nicole Hametner seeks to reveal the disturbing natureof her subjects. It is no surprise that night holds a prominent place in her work, as a subject and a setting ("L'Heure bleue", "Le Sapin") and as an essential condition ("Schwarzes Licht"). Nicole Hametner does not hide her interest in romanticism and psychoanalysis. When she speaks of "Schwarzes Licht", she evokes Freud and Greek mythology. Deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna) refers directly to the figure of Atropos. The three Moirae – or Fates – spin (Clotho), measure (Lachesis) and cut (Atropos) the thread of life. In psychoanalysis, the long thread of the life force is structuredby a series of situations produced by ruptures. In the manner of Atropos, the nature of the light source structures the cycle of appearance/disappearance, life/death of the images in "Schwarzes Licht".

Procedure — X and Chen Yongwei give each other lessons in Swiss German and Chinese.
The camera records only the points of light (bulbs) attached to the bodies and the sound.

Rainer Ganahl modified the 1950's song "Tu voi far l' Americano" into "Tu voi far propio Cinese". The artist considers and questions the actual economic and political strategies in China. Since 1992, several Ganahl works have been inspired by the anticolonial theories of Edward Said. Ganahl uses foreign language learning as an instrument as an artistic gesture and thus analyses the political and economic world occurrences.

Rainer Ganahl was born in 1967 in Bludenz, Vorarlberg, Austria. He lives and works since 1990 in New York, USA. He studied Philosophy and History at the Innsbruck University. He studied with Peter Weibel in the University of Applied Art, in Viena, and with Nam June Paik in the Art Academy of Dusseldorf. In 1990 joined the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Ingrid Wildi Merino.

Presented with the kind support of the city of Biel / Bienne

Ingrid Wildi Merino gives us an invitation to freely think of Dislocation, it causes and effects, where people from different nationalities and from different social backgrounds find and connect through common answers about how we live in this world.

The curator Ingrid Wildi Merino proposes the following text as a thought about Dislocation by Benoit Goetz, a way of getting close to the problems of a particular architectonic space as Juraplatz and, at the same time combine this concept of Goetz with the idea of how we live in this world, but our inner human world always depending on the external space: Political and Architectural.

La dislocation est l'évènement qui affecte l'espace contemporain. Mais on peut dire tout aussi bien que cet évènement était contenu de manière immémoriale dans l'espace lui-même qui est, par définition, une puissance d'écartement et de dispersion. Les mythologies du Lieu, les représentations du Monde empêchaient toutefois cet évènement d'éclater au grand jour.

Cette survenue de la dislocation n'a rien, en soi, de catastrophique. Elle signifie simplement que les espaces désormais flottent librement, détachés, insuperposables à quelque image du monde que ce soit, désamarrés de tout système cosmique, de toute croix orientante. Ni lieux, ni non-lieux, des espaces naissent et meurent au travers de processus complexes : construction, architectures, espace familier, espace social, espace public, espace culturel, espace du travail, devenirs qui emportent la citadinité, gestes et attitudes d'habitants et de passagers. La description de ces espaces relève donc à la fois d'une poétique de l'architecture du pense et d'une reprise de la question concernant le sens de l'habitation du monde.
Benoît Goetz, « La Dislocation, Architecture et Philosophie. »

In “BIG POOL”, there is devastation. A big silent pool that converges and goes around the Chilean sea. A hotel-city, a model for national and international tourism. The biggest pool of the world made by the growing economic development, just like in many artificial cities, currently converted into ghost cities around the world, where, due to the desire of creating big scale projects, these become grotesque. Big Pool articulates how contemporary landscape is negotiated in our world. Enrique Muñoz García

K-Objekts (Stands for cantonal objects) are works that are considered worthy of protection and preservation. Before any restoration is permitted, there is an intensive preliminary process of analysis before which the required permission is granted to restore.

The work on the landmarked house on the Juraplatz lasted from May to September 2010. The photos were taken at the construction site on the Juraplatz, in the cantonal historic preservation warehouse, and in the Jura garage in Biel.

Antique photos and postcards compliment the work. They reveal various perspectives of Biel's old town throughout different epochs. In addition, Molari and Wick Architekten in Biel, who are responsible for the restoration, have made both old and new architectural plans available for viewing.

Enrique Muñoz García designed "K-Objekt" specifically for on-site interaction: For the slideshow, he chose the former kiosk at the Juraplatz bus stop as an original art space, since it is located directly opposite the documented building. In this way, the viewer has the opportunity to make a direct comparison from the present, to the building of the past - an optimal configuration. In the staircase of the building on Untergasse 47 (K-object), the artist presents a total of 90 of his photos of the restoration project.

DEUTSCH

K-Objekt ist ein Fotoprojekt über die Sanierung des Gebäudes der ehemaligen Pharmacie du Jura und der heutigen Caritas am Bieler Juraplatz.

K-Objekte (Kantonale Objekte) sind schützens- und erhaltenswerte Objekte. Sie dürfen nicht ohne intensive Vor- abklärungen und die entsprechende Bewilligung renoviert oder saniert werden.
Die Arbeiten am denkmalgeschützten Haus am Juraplatz dauerten von Mai bis September 2010. Die Fotos sind entstanden auf der Baustelle am Juraplatz, im Objektlager des kantonalen Denkmalschutzes und in der Jura- Garage in Biel enstanden.

Bei diesem Projekt stehen die Bauarbeiter im Hintergrund. Auch wenn sie eine wichtige Rolle übernehmen, sind alle auf eine gewisse Weise versteckt. Wichtiger war bei dieser Arbeit der ganze Prozess der Sanierung sowie die Beleuchtung des Kontrasts zwischen Alt und Neu — Protagonist ist hier das Gebäude. Antike Postkarten aus der Sammlung von Françis Meyer ergänzen die Arbeit. Sie zeigen diesen Winkel der Bieler Altstadt in verschiedenen Epochen. Weiter kommen alte und neue Architekturpläne dazu, die das für die Sanierung zuständige Architekturbüro Molari und Wick Architekten in Biel zur Verfügung gestellt hat.

Enrique Muñoz García hat die Ausstellung "K-Objekt" vor Ort konzipiert: Für die Diashow hat er den ehemaligen Kiosk bei der Bushaltestelle Juraplatz als originellen Kunstraum ausgewählt, da dieser sich genau gegenüber des dokumentierten Gebäudes befindet. So konnte der Betrachter immer den Direktvergleich Früher-Heute machen. Auf diese Art hat die Ausstellung optimal funktioniert. Im Treppenhaus des Gebäudes an der Untergasse 47 (K-Objekt) hat der Künstler zudem 90 seiner Fotos von der Restaurierung gezeigt.