EVENT: ALEKSANDAR RADAN (NOVEMBER 24—DECEMBER 7 2023, ONLINE)

This water gives back no Images

3-channel video installation, 6:12 min, loop, 2017, Germany; hereby presented as a single-channel digital video

Created by Aleksandar Radan

Originally conceived as a 3-channel video installation, This water gives back no Images features a lush, tropical digital landscape created using modified scenes from Grand Theft Auto. We see palm trees bending in the wind and hear soft rustling sounds and bird chirps. An avatar moves through this landscape, wading into the water. As it bathes, the figure seems to dissolve into the ripples and reflections in the water, its contours blurring into the surroundings. About halfway through the video, a grainy black and white recording of Nina Simone singing “Images” (1966) appears embedded within the video game aesthetic. This water gives back no Images questions notions of identity and reflection within an increasingly digital world. 

A German artist born in 1988, Aleksandar Radan studied at the Hochschule für Gestaltung Offenbach. His work explores digital media, focusing on themes of technological disconnection and virtual identities. Radan alters computer game environments through modding, filming live action footage within the modified spaces. His experimental short films juxtapose programmed avatars with improvised gestures, bringing the virtual and physical worlds into collision. Radan’s works have been exhibited internationally, including at the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival and Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

EVENT: LARS PREISSER (NOVEMBER 10—23 2023, ONLINE)

HOME/NOME

Video installation, SNES game consoles, animation, video, Hi8, miniDV, Bang & Olufsen 90s TV sets, hereby presented as digital video, color, sound, 4’ 16, 2021-2022, Germany

Created by Lars Preisser

NOME/HOME is an immersive video installation exploring the relationship between memory, interior design, and video games. Specifically, NOME/HOME recreates Preisser’s former Berlin apartment through the pixelated rendering of Mario Paint, breathing renewed life into the spaces he once inhabited. Participants traverse disorienting rooms as Preisser’s own voice echoes hauntingly around them. This audible tableau juxtaposed with the visual fragmentation of the gaming software creates a palpable sense of nostalgia and loss. Visitors are transported into uncanny reimaginings of real spaces that over time have been distorted by the urban forces of gentrification. By reviving the past through both analog and digital artifacts, Preisser contemplates the ephemerality of memory and the erasure of history in the built environment. NOME/HOME provides an entry point to meditate on the entwined nature of place, recollection, and selfhood within the ever-changing terrain of the city.

Lars Preisser is a multidisciplinary German artist whose work spans various media including weaving, drawing, and moving images. Born in 1984 in Lindau, Preisser holds degrees in textile art and media art from Otago Polytechnic and HGB Leipzig. His research-intensive projects result in intricate formations that address issues like gentrification, technology, climate change, and post-colonialism through a personal lens. Preisser’s family heritage and background in industrial machinery inform his practice. The artist has exhibited internationally at venues like Bauhaus Dessau, nGbK Berlin, and the contemporary textile art biennial Contextile among others. Preisser spent formative years in New Zealand before returning to Berlin where he currently lives and maintains an active studio practice

EVENT: SØREN THILO FUNDER (FEBRUARY 24 . MARCH 9 2023, ONLINE)

EVERYWHERE

Digital video/machinima (720 x 328), color, 11’ 33”, 2007, Denmark

Created by Søren Thilo Funder

In Everywhere, we witness a lone figure navigating through a bleak and surreal urban environment, evoking a sense of isolation and alienation. The desolate terrain appears to be both familiar and foreign, presenting a disorienting experience for the viewer. The man’ continuous movement and evasion of unseen obstacles within the virtual realm challenge conventional notions of escapism, offering a fresh perspective on the concept as an unending cycle of seeking liberation from an undefined void. The piece’s cyclical nature serves as a commentary on the paradoxical nature of escape, as the runner’s repetitive journey highlights the futility of attempting to break free from the inherent boundaries, constraints, and power dynamics of digital media. Through this haunting work, the artist invites us to reflect on the interplay between virtual and real-life experiences, and the inherent limits within the world of gaming.

An artist who specializes in video and installation, Søren Thilo Funder, creates thought-provoking works that blend various cultural tropes, socio-political issues, and popular fictions. These narrative constructions operate within a delicate membrane where fictions and realities intersect, generating fresh interpretations and new meanings. Funder's oeuvre is steeped in both written and unwritten histories, as well as a deep awareness of the paradoxes and complexities of societal engagement. His art explores temporal displacements, nonlinear storytelling, and the emergence of new, unconventional forms of memory. Through his work, Thilo Funder creates immersive spaces that enable unpredictable encounters with the political, temporal, and recollective. He invites the viewer to challenge their preconceptions and explore the unexpected, creating a dialogue that is both deeply personal and universally relevant. Funder received an MA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and The School of Art and Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is currently finishing a Doctorate program in Artistic Research at The Art Academy, Department of Contemporary Art, University of Bergen in Norway.

EVENT: MATEUS DOMINGOS (APRIL 16 - APRIL 29 2021)

LAN PARTY NOTES

digital video (1280 x 720), sound, color, 10’ 20”, 2013 (United Kingdom)

Created by Mateus Domingos

Introduced by Riccardo Retez

LAN Party was an installation originally created by Vanilla Galleries in collaboration with Arc-Vel and Dexter and Finbar Prior, at the Two Queens art gallery in Leicester, United Kingdom, in 2013. The work focuses on the concept of respawn which, in the context of video games, indicates the live creation of a character or item after its death or disappearance. Respawning creates and endless loop of (simulated) life and death. Vanilla Galleries’ work contextualizes such concept in a cultural re-generation perspective, where death and rebirth are visualized through a specific interface, the first-person shooter LAN party. A specially designed custom map has been created by the collective as a place for them to exist and work over a period of time. The installation comprises a number of computers inhabiting the main gallery space at Two Queens and visitors are invited to participate in the contest of the Cultural Deathmatch in order to perpetuate the ongoing cycle of life and death within the setting of the local area network.

Also known as ghostglyph, Mateus Domingos is an artist/writer based in Leicester, United Kingdom. He was a founding member and co-director of Leicester’s artist run gallery and studio space Two Queens. He is a member of Phoenix Interact Labs and manages the publishing project Bruise. He is interested in text, narrative and new digital spaces. His work has included games, 3D printing, fictional alphabets, maps and film making. In 2012 he represented the United Kingdom in Maribor, the European Capital of Culture and World Event Young Artist. Recent exhibitions include Two Queens, Leicester, Phoenix & De Montfort University, Leicester and Modern Painters, New Decorators, Loughborough. In parallel with his artistic practice, he is a producer for the digital arts program at Phoenix, Leicester. He works on artist development opportunities and hosts a series of meetups exploring digital arts practices. He collaborates with Sweden-based Nathan Bissette under the moniker Dead Hand to produce sound, music, and broadcasts. Recently they have released a book of scores and started producing an experimental podcast. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Loughborough University. He lives and works in Leicester.

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