Monique Besten, old and new works
Now Here, At Home Gallery, Samorin (Slovakia), 2007
Photography, European Artists, Hällefors (SE), 2006
HART, Fortress Wierickerschans (Bodegraven/NL), 2006
35 slide projectors project images of people living in the area of this fortress on its walls, ceilings and corners. Wall becomes skin, nails become freckles, cracks become wrinkles.
Window projection, Retort (Amsterdam/NL), 2005
During several weeks every day a different videoloop was projected in the window of a gallery in a busy street in Amsterdam. Every video showed street scenes and events filmed in Slovakia. Everyday scenes and events, becoming special by the way in which time and concentration are given to the "non-events" within the image.
Videoinstallation, Retort (Amsterdam), 2005
On a false wall a seemingly abstract image is projected, two lines devide three colour fields. In the big grey field movement is visible, shadows have disappeared already before they become clearly visible. Suddenly a clothesline comes into being, the laundry moves, dances, disappears, reappears, moves, disappears. Nothing really happens. Somewhere the sun is shining and laundry flies in the wind. Just outside the image. But the image hypnotizes, the eyes are challenged, the shadows seem to creep out of the floor and dissolve again, the two-dimensional space becomes three-dimensional and turns back into a flat surface. An everyday image is taken out of its everyday context and suddenly becomes a miraculously beautiful and exciting image, thereby testing the way we look at things.
Musical event in Retort, Amsterdam, 2005
I invited three musicians with three different mationalities (Felicity Provan: Australian, Meinrad Kneer: German, Alan Purves: Scottish) to improvise on a melody which sounded every day at half past four at the city where I lived during my residency in Slovakia. It was originally a nationalistic tune. The musicians at Retort started playing at exactly half past four, first the melody as it sounds every day in Slovakia, moving into a beautiful improvisation from there.
Slide installation "One photo a day", City Museum Sturovo (Slovakia), 2005
During my residency in Slovakia I took one new photo every day and hung it in the window of my house in Sturovo. 173 days = 173 photos. From the street the inhabitants of Sturovo and other passers-by could see how I looked at their world. At the end of the residency the photos were presented on a monitor in the City Museum in Sturovo in the middle of a permanent exhibition about life in this region at the beginning of the last century. A modern tv with images of my everyday life in Slovakia surrounded by antique objects.
Installation "Jó világ van" (Hungarian: life is good), City Museum Sturovo (Slovakia), 2005
Following on part 1 - in which during a period of several weeks this text was spread through the cities of Sturovo (SK) and Esztergom (HU) - this installation was presented. 30.000 yellow stick-on notepapers written with the same text, by one and the same person, cover all the walls and the ceiling of a museum room. Now and then a notepaper wirls down and remains on the floor with the other pieces of paper or gets stuck on the shoes of a visitor.
Intervention "Jó világ van" part 1 (Hungarian: life is good), Sturovo (SK) / Esztergom (HU), 2005
I spread 10.000 stick-on yellow notepapers anonymously through two cities on both sides of the Danube. I stuck them on shopwindows, lampposts, cars, doors, etc.
Biological graffiti, Bridge Guard Art and Science Residency, Sturovo (SK), 2005
Exploration (in the first two weeks of my residency in Slovakia) to "mark out" or "conquer" my working space by planting tulip bulbs at every newly discovered spot. This area used to be occupied by the Turkish; the tulip bulb, which is also the turistic symbol of Holland, originates from Turkey. The photos of the planting of 181 tulips/181 locations are projected or presented on a monitor. The slides pass at random.
Prophesie, Saint Nicolas Chapel (Amsterdam/NL), 2004
I found a round floor in the middle of an old chapel. It was covered by a round carpet. The carpet was strewn with cigarette burns, small round black holes everywhere. I connected them, using needle and thread. Figures appeared. The carpet had been hiding an amazing world.
HIER: video/intervention, Babylon Club/Space For Artists (Amsterdam/NL), February 26/27 2004
Registration of a one-day journey to France with my only luggage being the word "HIER", a word existing in both the Dutch and the French language. In Dutch it is a determination of place (meaning: here) and in France it is a determination of time (meaning: yesterday). This work has to be shown the day after it has been made in order to see time and place tumble over each other in a miraculous way. Video length: 7.20 min.
Video installation for hurdy gurdy and guitar (Isbin/Fourier), Club Panama/European TryTone Festival (Amsterdam), 2003
4 projections on 4 big screens show an associative story in which the music made by the duo forms an extra and supportive layer
Video installation, Here we are/Gerrit Rietveld Academy, 2003
A video installation, consisting of two hanging monitors and a video projection. The video material consists of short pieces of film, depicting "non-events" in a way which gives the impression things are being manipulated, but is in fact nothing but the plain and splendid reality, manifesting itself everywhere around us. In my search for these images I tried to be as open as possible for the "coincidences" that happen in the world around us. By bringing these images together in an installation, a new environment has come into being in which the collected elements (consisting of the video material, the devices by which they are shown and the space itself) can trigger similar "coincidences". Because images are being projected over each other, reflect one another, have visitors cast their shadows on top of them and fit now and then as far as timing goes amazingly well without having been planned this way, a situation arises in front of the viewers eyes which is similar to the circumstances I was in while seeing and filming these images.
Performance, Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), 2003
A performance about looking and being looked at, about man and machine, about the triangle between maker, viewer and the artwork. All this taking place in a church, the Home of the Maker with a capital M who might be watching us at the same time. The slide projector turns around and around and projects the same text again and again on the eyelids of the performer: "Look at me". Every time the projector changes slides (every 10 seconds) the woman opens her eyes and looks at the projector. After which she closes her eyes right at the moment when the projector projects the next slide with the same text. This performance has been performed at several locations.
Laser installation, Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), 2003
A text with the outline of a conversation is being projected with a laser on a church wall. The conversation is about "what a conversation is or might be" and refers to the "dialogue" a work of art enters into with the viewer. The location and the blue light give an extra dimension to the work by referring to the communication between God (the ultimate creator) and man.
View, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, 2002
I see the view from the window and write what I see on the window. Clear descriptions, simple words, dry text. The more I write, the more the view is being pushed away by the words. The original landscape is replaced by a landscape made out of words.
Theater production Hemelhuizen (Heavenly Houses), Stadsschouwburg Utrecht 2001
Collaboration between 3 visual artists and 3 musicions
Colaboration with vibraphonist Hans Hasebos: slides are being projected on a meters long dress worn by a singer, the slides relate to the theme "view", she sings a text about the same subject
Collaboration with pianist Albert van Veenendaal: 3 life-size photos are being brought upon the stage and show extremely enlarged images of a dolls house furniture, at the same time Albert van Veenendaal plays the piano but instead of the normal sound you hear all the "background noise" because a large number of tiny microphones amplify all the sounds the pianist makes: creaking of the piano stool, sighing, cracking of his clothes, coughing, etc.
Photography, European Artists, Hällefors (SE), 2006
HART, Fortress Wierickerschans (Bodegraven/NL), 2006
35 slide projectors project images of people living in the area of this fortress on its walls, ceilings and corners. Wall becomes skin, nails become freckles, cracks become wrinkles.
Window projection, Retort (Amsterdam/NL), 2005
During several weeks every day a different videoloop was projected in the window of a gallery in a busy street in Amsterdam. Every video showed street scenes and events filmed in Slovakia. Everyday scenes and events, becoming special by the way in which time and concentration are given to the "non-events" within the image.
Videoinstallation, Retort (Amsterdam), 2005
On a false wall a seemingly abstract image is projected, two lines devide three colour fields. In the big grey field movement is visible, shadows have disappeared already before they become clearly visible. Suddenly a clothesline comes into being, the laundry moves, dances, disappears, reappears, moves, disappears. Nothing really happens. Somewhere the sun is shining and laundry flies in the wind. Just outside the image. But the image hypnotizes, the eyes are challenged, the shadows seem to creep out of the floor and dissolve again, the two-dimensional space becomes three-dimensional and turns back into a flat surface. An everyday image is taken out of its everyday context and suddenly becomes a miraculously beautiful and exciting image, thereby testing the way we look at things.
Musical event in Retort, Amsterdam, 2005
I invited three musicians with three different mationalities (Felicity Provan: Australian, Meinrad Kneer: German, Alan Purves: Scottish) to improvise on a melody which sounded every day at half past four at the city where I lived during my residency in Slovakia. It was originally a nationalistic tune. The musicians at Retort started playing at exactly half past four, first the melody as it sounds every day in Slovakia, moving into a beautiful improvisation from there.
Slide installation "One photo a day", City Museum Sturovo (Slovakia), 2005
During my residency in Slovakia I took one new photo every day and hung it in the window of my house in Sturovo. 173 days = 173 photos. From the street the inhabitants of Sturovo and other passers-by could see how I looked at their world. At the end of the residency the photos were presented on a monitor in the City Museum in Sturovo in the middle of a permanent exhibition about life in this region at the beginning of the last century. A modern tv with images of my everyday life in Slovakia surrounded by antique objects.
Installation "Jó világ van" (Hungarian: life is good), City Museum Sturovo (Slovakia), 2005
Following on part 1 - in which during a period of several weeks this text was spread through the cities of Sturovo (SK) and Esztergom (HU) - this installation was presented. 30.000 yellow stick-on notepapers written with the same text, by one and the same person, cover all the walls and the ceiling of a museum room. Now and then a notepaper wirls down and remains on the floor with the other pieces of paper or gets stuck on the shoes of a visitor.
Intervention "Jó világ van" part 1 (Hungarian: life is good), Sturovo (SK) / Esztergom (HU), 2005
I spread 10.000 stick-on yellow notepapers anonymously through two cities on both sides of the Danube. I stuck them on shopwindows, lampposts, cars, doors, etc.
Biological graffiti, Bridge Guard Art and Science Residency, Sturovo (SK), 2005
Exploration (in the first two weeks of my residency in Slovakia) to "mark out" or "conquer" my working space by planting tulip bulbs at every newly discovered spot. This area used to be occupied by the Turkish; the tulip bulb, which is also the turistic symbol of Holland, originates from Turkey. The photos of the planting of 181 tulips/181 locations are projected or presented on a monitor. The slides pass at random.
Prophesie, Saint Nicolas Chapel (Amsterdam/NL), 2004
I found a round floor in the middle of an old chapel. It was covered by a round carpet. The carpet was strewn with cigarette burns, small round black holes everywhere. I connected them, using needle and thread. Figures appeared. The carpet had been hiding an amazing world.
HIER: video/intervention, Babylon Club/Space For Artists (Amsterdam/NL), February 26/27 2004
Registration of a one-day journey to France with my only luggage being the word "HIER", a word existing in both the Dutch and the French language. In Dutch it is a determination of place (meaning: here) and in France it is a determination of time (meaning: yesterday). This work has to be shown the day after it has been made in order to see time and place tumble over each other in a miraculous way. Video length: 7.20 min.
Video installation for hurdy gurdy and guitar (Isbin/Fourier), Club Panama/European TryTone Festival (Amsterdam), 2003
4 projections on 4 big screens show an associative story in which the music made by the duo forms an extra and supportive layer
Video installation, Here we are/Gerrit Rietveld Academy, 2003
A video installation, consisting of two hanging monitors and a video projection. The video material consists of short pieces of film, depicting "non-events" in a way which gives the impression things are being manipulated, but is in fact nothing but the plain and splendid reality, manifesting itself everywhere around us. In my search for these images I tried to be as open as possible for the "coincidences" that happen in the world around us. By bringing these images together in an installation, a new environment has come into being in which the collected elements (consisting of the video material, the devices by which they are shown and the space itself) can trigger similar "coincidences". Because images are being projected over each other, reflect one another, have visitors cast their shadows on top of them and fit now and then as far as timing goes amazingly well without having been planned this way, a situation arises in front of the viewers eyes which is similar to the circumstances I was in while seeing and filming these images.
Performance, Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), 2003
A performance about looking and being looked at, about man and machine, about the triangle between maker, viewer and the artwork. All this taking place in a church, the Home of the Maker with a capital M who might be watching us at the same time. The slide projector turns around and around and projects the same text again and again on the eyelids of the performer: "Look at me". Every time the projector changes slides (every 10 seconds) the woman opens her eyes and looks at the projector. After which she closes her eyes right at the moment when the projector projects the next slide with the same text. This performance has been performed at several locations.
Laser installation, Oude Kerk (Amsterdam), 2003
A text with the outline of a conversation is being projected with a laser on a church wall. The conversation is about "what a conversation is or might be" and refers to the "dialogue" a work of art enters into with the viewer. The location and the blue light give an extra dimension to the work by referring to the communication between God (the ultimate creator) and man.
View, Gerrit Rietveld Academy, 2002
I see the view from the window and write what I see on the window. Clear descriptions, simple words, dry text. The more I write, the more the view is being pushed away by the words. The original landscape is replaced by a landscape made out of words.
Theater production Hemelhuizen (Heavenly Houses), Stadsschouwburg Utrecht 2001
Collaboration between 3 visual artists and 3 musicions
Colaboration with vibraphonist Hans Hasebos: slides are being projected on a meters long dress worn by a singer, the slides relate to the theme "view", she sings a text about the same subject
Collaboration with pianist Albert van Veenendaal: 3 life-size photos are being brought upon the stage and show extremely enlarged images of a dolls house furniture, at the same time Albert van Veenendaal plays the piano but instead of the normal sound you hear all the "background noise" because a large number of tiny microphones amplify all the sounds the pianist makes: creaking of the piano stool, sighing, cracking of his clothes, coughing, etc.
posted by monique besten at 12:47
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