|
|
 |
| CUE
PROJECT: "TO THE STADIUM" Uwe Wittwer, Kevin Mueller (DVD, 21 min. looped, 2001) |
deutsch |
|
Showing at Kunsthalle Winterthur, Switzerland, Dec 8th – Jan 26th 2002 Kunsthaus Langenthal, Switzerland, May 3rd – June 30th 2002 |
see
catalogue "in between" (pdf)  |
|
"To the Stadium" is the approach to the football-stadium and it's
surrounding environment at a time, when there isn't any football on: in
the summer break, after the end of the previous and before the start of
the new season. The two artists and football enthusiasts Wittwer and Mueller see the football-stadium as a central architectural and social element of a city. With their work, they reflect a traditional, ritualised cultural practice in the state of non-existence. They don't particularly emphasize on the game or the stadium as an element of the urban structure. The Artists are in search of the mood of those places at a time, when no football is being playd; always keeping in mind the true purpose of those buildings – and the joy this evokes. "To the Stadium" is based on images and recordings of emotionally charged places surrounding the stadium, taken at a time when football-emotions are absent. Albeit never fully absent: Even though the sound of the lawnmower trimming the pitch will remind only few people of a football match, this sound can evoke certain prospects: the first foot that will step on the pitch at the first game of the season; the first ball ready for kick-off. Associating the sound of the lawnmower with the start of the football-season, is probably not the most common of allegories –in the work of Uwe Wittwer und Kevin Mueller it can serve as a metaphor for the creative process: The recorded moment depicts a mood, which through the artistic work becomes a composition of image, sound and music. The artistic work is mostly the shaping of the recorded moments according to the image and sound of the whole surrounding as it sits in the artists minds, mixed with other memories like an afternoon at the pub or a football game etc. The research isn't limited to the stadium as a building; it starts with the arrival at the nearest tube station and includes the entire range of subjective observation on one hand, on the other hand the research is based on more or less objective perception: the camera captures fractions of what the human eye sees, the microphone records all sounds within it's limited radius. The way to the stadium is so illustrated in seemingly random motives: a cornerstone, a rose, a birdsong or a running engine. "To the Stadium" is, what these places have conjured up in the memory of the artists. Be it on location or in the studio. The recorded sounds and the photographs are the raw material for the memory process, taking place in the studio. The work on image and sound is done on computers. Working with digital media – as opposed to canvas or paper –is a dematerialisation of the picture. There is nothing left to touch. The dematerialisation brings image and sound closer together and accredits the two with equal importance. "To the Stadium" is the continuation of the cycle "Relative Stille / Relatively Still" (1999), which already included work in various media: from photography to inkjet-print, from inkjet to a book, on to text, sound, video and oil on canvas. Moving freely between different media is a central element at the CUE institute. The unbiased exchange between the media allows for people to work together outside their specific field of activity. While with Relatively Still the text was done in-house (Kevin Mueller), the text (written and spoken) for to the stadium is by Amy Lawrence, writer and sports-journalist for The Observer. As with "Relative Stille/Relatively Still", the music's produced by Kevin Mueller und Andreas Ryser (DJ's Kev the Head & Dustbowl – 100 Mouthwatering Menus Inc.) Thanks for support, work and involvement to Videocompany.ch (hopp YB), Walter Mueller, Swisscontent Corp, DJ Dustbowl and Amy Lawrence. |
|
->
see sample in quicktime format |