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Humans Battle Electricity in a Williamsburg Brownstone Exhibit

For a five-night opening reception, 'Electrique' transforms a building into an electrical and mechanical light and sound art installation.
Photo courtesy of The Hollows

Electrical and mechanical light and sound installations span all four floors of The Hollows, a multilevel gallery housed in a brownstone in Williamsburg, for the five-night opening reception of Electrique. Beginning on June 15, the 40-piece group exhibition features works both on the front and back facades of the building, as well as on all floors within. Each artist was restricted from using anything digital in their pieces, although the prevailing theme of Electrique explores the relationship between humans and electricity. Each level of the brownstone represents a different stage in the development of that struggle, beginning with the sub-theme "Electricity As Agent," in the basement, wherein visitors are introduced to electricity as an invading force. From there, subsequent floors highlight the increasing tension between humans and electricity until the final level, "Electric+Human," where the two merge, becoming one “super-entity.”

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As an addition to every exhibit, The Hollows offers visitors an inside glimpse at the curatorial processes of its exhibitions in a recurring "Curator’s Room" installation, now entitled, Electra’s Remedy. It provides visitors with a behind-the-scenes experience of the making of Electrique. The Creators Project sat down with curator Pırıl Gündüz for a sneak peak at the ambitious exhibition.

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Photo courtesy of The Hollows

The Creators Project: What inspired the concept for Electrique?

Pırıl Gündüz: Electrique was inspired by nyctophobia, the fear of the dark, how to make it through the night to the morning when alone in a big empty house. Living with your demons and playing them until the dawn. Fear of the dark is regarded as an irrational fear, often only attributed to children but also valid for some adults. My father said the phobia of darkness emerged in our wiring due to the survival in the wild, at risk of the predator, and in modern living human finds some reciprocities to this impulse as the predator trigger is no longer valid. Surrounded by walls, we look into the abyss and we register the abyss, the onlooker, not through the trunks or branches but a more substantial and a vicious one. Night is easy for no one, but it can be fun. Also, Electrique as a human quality that can be achieved, obtained—attractiveness, not by default but a braided one. Maybe it is a “feminine”—better—a “girly” exhibition, more “girly,” in the sense [of] accepting being minor, hence, the big dark empty house, yet standing tall to your height.

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Photo courtesy of artist Dave Rittinger

What is your definition of digital and why did you choose to restrict it from the artwork presented?

I got to thinking more about the digital after reading Gilles Deleuze’s writings, especially his books Cinema 1: The Movement Image and Cinema 2: The Time-Image and Henri Bergson’s Matter and Memory. Deleuze brings forth the concept of the virtual and it is a fascinating concept to me, thinking in context of existence, evolution, archive and the human. Could it be claimed that the digital is the logistic of the technology and the virtual of the human and then there is the matter?

I think it is important to dedicate an exhibition to pieces that have contemporary aesthetics but are of the technology of the 19th century. Contemporary art exhibitions had tended to jump from beaux-art conception to the digital, featuring novelties such as applications, interactive pieces, projections. You see, for example, in Édouard Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882), light fixtures being depicted, a novelty at the time. I think having an exhibition not based on the newness of a technology or the cleverness of a custom software but on a more thoughtful consideration of visual aesthetics with saturated and matured technologies, brings together pieces that think about their aesthetics rather than the groundbreaking aspect of a certain technology and creates a less hasty tone. I think of the pieces exhibited as being less didactic and more pleasing.

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On the side, I was lucky to be assisting a digital art curator Christiane Paul for three years and digital pieces require a lot of cabling, hardware, and mounting accessories, and for the production team to work on turning on/off all the pieces before and after public hours. For this exhibition, we’ll just have to plug in the cords.

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Photo courtesy of The Hollows

What facade installations can we expect?

Some of the art works are installed indoors in such a way that they are visible from the street and the backyard on both facades of the building. Annesta Le’s three neon glass pieces are installed on three windows on the second floor. From the outside, it appears to be a continuous piece, a giant bolt that dominates the entire floor. On the ground floor, there are two kinetic chandelier shaped disco balls by Kiichiro Adachi attached to the ceiling. We also have a piece by Randy Polumbo installed outdoors on the porch, a telephone booth in which his signature shaped glass fixtures are blossoming, as well as a more adult piece by him that is placed on a top floor window, considerate of children’s height. It is a cast glass piece of a Hermès Birkin bag from which a bouquet of glass dildos pop out. Polumbo told me that he had to ruin the bag during the casting.

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Photo courtesy of The Hollows

What kind of sensory experience does Electrique provide?

We’re exhibiting interactive neon and xenon light pieces by Marco Guglielmino. One of his neon pieces responds to the human magnetic field. The viewer can pet the gas in the glass tube and the piece needs that touch to light fully. For this piece, we tried an installation on a mirror to amplify the visual and witnessed that the mirror blocked the flow. We’ll be exhibiting this piece with on a pedestal with mirror tiles and the visitors can grasp the interplay of different magnetic fields and the channeling that occurs among them. With his xenon gas pieces, touching the glass allows you to feel a subtle amount of heat and your touch stabilizes the moving light to an extent.

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There is also a gallery with the sub-theme "With and Without," where there is a light piece with timer installed in a strategic area of the house, a place where you might depend on the electricity the most. Although there will not be a complete black out, it is an inconveniency piece that will be an experience. The interruption of light will also make you notice other things. There is also a sound piece dominating the basement as well as a "Cave" sub-theme gallery with illusions, between "Schizophrenia" and "Psychedelia"-themed galleries, and also a gallery dedicated to cracks in the walls.

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Photo courtesy of The Hollows

In your opinion, what are the highlights of the show?

The pieces do not steal spotlight from each other but they all stand out at dark. Lindsay Packer is exhibiting Compact 3, an analogue projection of a standard spiral bulb with a magnifier lens and it is a site-responsive piece. Her practice revolves around using the ingredients she finds at the space and using minimal hardware and structure, and achieving well thought-out imageries with good calculations even though the result seems like a spontaneous installation. Another piece is [from] Turkish Designer Merve Kahraman’s Revitalizer series, in which she uses wax. The wax is heated by electricity and as it melts, the wax is accumulated in a lampshade at the bottom, only to be reversed and used again. Another highlight is by Gregory Barsamian, a zoetrope piece in a barrel, an example of pre-digital animation. There is also an intervention by the curatorial team, myself, Gina Mischianti and Anna Kamensky, a circular light piece that loops through the doorways on the third floor.

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Photo courtesy of artist Dave Rittinger

Can you give us a sneak peek of Electra’s Remedy, the "Curator’s Room" for Electrique?

"Curator’s Room" is an installation project, for me, making philosophy and creating context with objects, not dependent on technical skill but on that of the mind. Also, a project of convenience, too. There is almost always a bed placed according to the theme of the iteration, now [the] fifth. We’re a live/work/exhibit artspace, an artist residency of a particular sort. There is a concept for each iteration but it is also a time-reliant piece—there are places that are left blank for anticipated last minute souvenirs time brings and throws or props and tools such as hammers and nails and notebooks and pens…

I think being a curator is something deep in-between the literary and the visual and you need to be pleasantly efficient. Space is very important, what is hidden, presented and polished. It requires [one] to have a little bit more than the bare minimum. All the objects, from notebooks to containers should be with a functionality that suits your needs and I think it is interesting to display these, different each time, suggesting methods and potential as they are used more for planning rather than display purposes.

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Photo courtesy of The Hollows

For a philosophy seminar I took, we also talked about how philosophers, Pascal, Nietzsche, or Lichtenberg wrote. For example, when Pascal passed away, they discovered that he was writing on long sheets of paper, binding them later on and sometimes rebinding them to change the orders. For it being the "Electric+Human" theme, Electra’s Remedy is placed on the top floor. Some eerie rest is found even for a short time along the night. There is a neon chandelier by Marco Guglielmino, a feminine/masculine light piece by Dave Rittinger, and another Birkin cast glass bag with glass pieces, the “Evil” one this time by Randy Polumbo. And some things under the bed. The bed is important rather than the desk as the work space. Like Susan Sontag on the bed. It is a work space without doubt. Girl in the attic, electricity gotten under the thumb, garroted by its very cables. They will also be some clothing, music, books, reproductions and another cable piece by Dave Rittinger, Nest.

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Photo courtesy of The Hollows

Electrique is on view at The Hollows through August 28th with a five-night opening reception June 15th through June 19th, from 9-11 PM.

For more information visit The Hollows' website.

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