return to refresh
(2022)
sound installation
"Regenerative cycling"
ear protections, earphones, bela microcontroller, microphone
"Zeitfenster 1959", "Zeitfenster 2016"
2 objects, 80×200 cm, variable height; digital print on cotton, IKEA TUPPLUR roller blinds
"Coat colour matching"
2 objects, 18×62×62 cm; acrylic paint on cardboard tube
Photos © Marta Beauchamp
The connection between Darja Shatalova and Marta Beauchamp’s artistic works emerges from the choice to use data as a point of reference for their artistic process. Whereas in her work zeitfenster 1959 and zeitfenster 2016 Marta Beauchamp deals with scientific data that has already been empirically evaluated, in her work 2. Zuordnung Darja Shatalova concentrates on the structuring and qualification of self-collected data. Darja records and reorganises data collected from her own life and thus reflects her ways of acting and thinking.
Both artists explore aspects of adaptation, deviation and transition. They deal with the questions: How can data be presented in different media forms? How are the numerical and textual formats, and the information content they contain, transformed into visual formats? What is changed and 'deformed' in this process?
At the centre of Beauchamp's works zeitfenster 1959 and zeitfenster 2016 is a study which addresses the problem of the adaptive mechanisms of the colour of hare fur in the context of changing environmental conditions. Within the observation period, the difference increases: the colour of the fur no longer follows the same rhythm as that of the environment, in this case the colour of the snow. The rapidly changing climatic network of relationships gives rise to interferences. By means of patterns that form synchronous movements on rolls of fabric and drift away from each other, the concepts of temporality of the bodies in the space, and the space itself, converse with each other.
Darja Shatalova examines her life course through recordings on transparent sheets with the intention of conceiving a system that organises the narratives of her everyday life and places them in given relations. For the exhibition in Sehsaal, she revises the system she set up in 2019 and works with different colour schemes. The first ordering strategy is represented by the colours red, blue and yellow, the second by green, violet and orange. The sheets take up the revision process in their form and are presented in the room as loops.
Forms & their interfaces, points of contact, sites of interaction
Moments of transition, of flowing into one another and of togetherness are pervaded by the possibility of connection, recognition and disruption. The coat colour matching tubes positioned by Marta Beauchamp connect the floor to the wall. They take up the colours of the two elements of the room and create the impression of their extension. How does the pipe function as an additional actor in the relationship between floor and wall? Depending on the perspective of the viewer, a synchronicity or a mismatch between the two elements emerges.
The spatial relationships established through objects are further extended by Beauchamp setting the sound piece regenerative cycling in relation to the space. The work induces a cyclical oscillation between 'ordinary' spatial sounds to a soundless spatial experience.
Darja Shatalova continues her transformational series of Drei Zeitfiguren and develops a new sound work for Sehsaal. The copper pipes will be employed as musical bodies; the work will be premiered by the artist together with sound artist Florian Fusco at the finissage.
If one follows Charles Sanders Peirce's argument that the first thought event alone cannot form a unity, but is only formed into a thought by the second event, which interprets it and integrates it into a broader structure of references, the artistic works by Darja Shatalova and Marta Beauchamp form networks of relationships and counterpoints, which, as temporary systems, on the one hand show us a 'new' process and form structure, and on the other hand can only be understood in relation to what has gone before and what is to come and can thus attain a certain stability. The artistic formats emphasise the meaning of the sensual and transform the abstract voice of the numbers and the textual argumentation into aesthetic objects that create new frames of reception and a further form of relational communication.
Author: Anamarija Batista
Translation: Marta Beauchamp
The piece was produced for the Galerie Sehsaal in April–May 2022 in cooperation with Darja Shatalova.
See gallery website for a complete documentation.