CONSTELLATIONS, Sergej Vutuc
plexiglas box 33,5x47x13,5cm inside 29x41,5x12
646 pages plus some bonus
2017 Konstanz - Berlin
STRAINING DA SEIN, DAS FORMAT, BREATHING
25.10. 2019 – 12.1. 2020 Kunstverein Heilbronn
With « CONSTELLATIONS », Sergej emphasizes on the idea of questioning the image and the credibility of its fidelity when it comes to its role as a relay of information throughout time. As physical representations, in their material form, images endure time and processes which in turn mark their own history - to the point where, after a while, it becomes unclear how now blurry or distorted fragments of what used to capture one dimension of reality eventually reach the spectator; the substance of their message then revealing a questionable aspect. It invites to ponder and explore the concepts of truth, objectivity and also authenticity as the production of images commonly involves reproduction and transformation of specific hues that really always keep changing, in spite of the timeless aspect of facades.
The concept here is introduced by the means of multiple layers of process: one being the author's original exhibition in Konstanz, 2017, where he physically invited the spectator into his own repurposed photography in quite the direct manner - using the venue as a portal into those captures to be questioned via the covering of its walls with photocopier-generated A3 fragments of his work, taking over the allocated space with a clash of dimensions, perceptions and both literal and figurative projections - and most importantly, the intention of later converting said exhibition into a book, once again in a literal way. This also parallels sensibly similar exploration in Heilbronn, 2019, where photography contextualized skateboarders as a representation of the modern social dialog between individuals and their absorption by their surroundings, and installations blended together different audiovisual techniques comprising as far as light play on the wall textures on location, Super-8 film projection overlays, and the transformation of exposed film into sound, exploring the abstraction inherent to the Medium, exhaling its flaws.
The Konstanz exhibition had originally been set up so that after closure, the installation as a whole could be reverse-engineered into a book, as - again - the material itself had physically been marked by the happening, and now owned up to its own singular story which repurposing them in a different space but with similar intent would contradict. Reiterating history then only further stands out as the type of danger Sergej’s works constantly warn us about. In the end, each photography fragment that was peeled off the walls is now not only presented as the particular object it is, but also incorporated into a completely new narrative journey in « CONSTELLATIONS », conveying yet another dimension to the original material (both as insular pieces and as a whole) and further pondering the idea of form. « CONSTELLATIONS » does not only parallel the experience of the 2017 exhibition but actually features its contents and represents as far as the physical alterations of the images, particles that stuck to it on location and thus bits of space from the venue itself, now turned into a stack of leaves.
Aymeric Nocus, Live Skateboard Media
VIDEO PRESENTATION:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EddiSmuqQU8
Duration: 18:05
Soundtrack is based on sound of turning a pages from the book, continuously looped and transformed