Playground Berlin:
Established in 2009, Playground Berlin is an international collective dedicated to independent art collaboration and presentation. Blurring generational, national, cultural and sexual boundaries, Playground Berlin's projects offer a delirious convergence of visual art, music, mixed media installations and performances. One of the most ambitious projects produced by Playground Berlin is the regular La Crèche exhibition, which last took place at the 2010 "Berliner Kunstsalon" art fair.
Mica Moca Project:
MicaMoca project Berlin is "an experiment in mixing genres, instigating culture clash and challenging the imagination." An old safe factory on Lindowerstrasse 22, Berlin is the setting until the end of September. Mica Moca's broad program of cultural events and projects combines a wide array of disciplines.
Curatorial Concept:
An international selection of artists has been invited by Playground Berlin to conceive site specific work for the Mica Moca building, a former safe factory in Berlin Wedding. From architectonic interventions, to participatory performances, to installations made from found materials to projections; many of the invited artists have ample experience creating informal ephemeral installations for Berlin's much quoted "temporary spaces" - its special post-Wall situation of limitless derelict space, small means, and a lack of professional art structures has created the setting for what has become an art historic niche for independent artists.
Featuring:
Gert-Jan Akerboom
Adar Aviam, Amit Elan & Liav Gabay
Karl Addison & James Bullough
J.Jackie Baier
Joana Dias
Nick Dewar
Marcela Donato
Tulip Enterprises
Przemek Dariuz Fronczak
Jens Kloppmann
Mia Morikama & Constance Marx
Tiago Oudman
Paul Polaris, Tobias von Glenck & Martin Lorenz
Clemence de la Tour du Pin
Madeline Stillwell
André Wakko
Curated by Marcela Donato, Kunstraum Richard Sorge and Tiago Oudman
Saturday July 16 2011, from 13.00 to 24.00 hours
Sunday July 17 2011, from 16:00 to 24.00 hours
Mica Moca, Lindower Strasse 22, Berlin Wedding
Performance Schedule:
Saturday:
Madeline Stillwell - "Machine Pipe Drawing" 13.00 hours
Constance Marx and Mia Morikama - "Nectar" 16.00 to 20.00 hours
Paul Polaris & Trabant Echo - "von und zu" 13.00 hours
Sunday:
Constance Marx and Mia Morikama - "Nectar" 16.00 to 21.00 hours
Marcela Donata - At Once - 18.00 hours
Paul Polaris & Trabant Echo - "von und zu" 19.00 hours
Madeline Stillwell - "Machine Pipe Drawing" 20.00 hours
André Wakko - "Sonematik" 21.00 hours
EMW Orchester - "Rite", electro-acoustics, oboe, dance & visuals - 21.30 hours
Facebook Event Page
Participants:
Gert-Jan Akerboom - Lake (still image projection/installation)
Gert-Jan Akerboom is a Dutch artist living in Berlin since 2006. The muralist and graphic artist specializing in highly intrinsic fineliner drawings will present a light installation inspired by his practice as a muralist.
Akerboom continually investigates and extends the concept of collaging. While he gets most of his material from the internet and from pictures taken with his digital camera, he also includes non-2D aspects in his work as well: incorporating structure, the passing of time and the sensation of movement.
http://www.gertjanakerboom.com/
Adar Aviam, Amit Elan & Liav Gabay - AykoWnOmiCa (installation)
Amit Elan is a 22 years old Berlin based Israeli artist. He studied at Hamidrasha Art Academy and has since developed mixed media installations. He exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in Europe, Asia and Israel. He writes for the artists' blog Art in Transit published by the international artists' organization I.G.B.K. Spring 2011 he completed an artist residency in the Philippines with a solo exhibition. In Berlin he took part in several exhibitions (co)organized by Kunstraum Richard Sorge, notably the "La Creche" project.
Israely artist Adar Aviam lives in Berlin since 2008. He mainly works as a painter of sarcastic punky works, and has experience as theater set designer.
http://www.wix.com/adaraviam/
"AykoWnOmiCa" is a living-room environment with many surreal twists and grotesque figuration, custom made for one of Mica Moca's atmospheric spaces using paint and cart board. The installation thematizes homeliness, bringing private atmosphere into a public space.
Karl Addison & James Bullough - Portrait Arrows (wheatpasting mural)
James's work explores the balance between contrasting elements: Abstract graffiti inspired backgrounds live with color and texture are met with intensely realistic images. Highly rendered portraits float atop layers of ambient space and geometric forms. Contemporary street art techniques and materials collide with those of the realist oil painters James admires.
http://www.jamesbullough.com/
Addison's purpose (it seems) is three-fold: to amuse us the first time we discover one of his pieces, to draw us in, inviting us to take a closer look, and to make us stop and see every minute detail, and in a sense, to stop and see him.
http://www.idrawalot.com/
J.Jackie Baier - Der Stand der Dinge (installation, triptych)
Noted photographer and documentary filmmaker J.Jackie Baier presents us with a deeply personal and unglamorized view of Berlin's sexual underground. Baier, who moved to Berlin in 1993 and officially became a woman in 1997, portrays in a non-voyeuristic way the lives of transsexual prostitutes, drag queens and other "misfits". Baier regularly presents her work at Kunstraum Richard Sorge.
Her environment of large scale projections shows that Baier's work is not only part of a vibrant artistic tradition of photographers/filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger and Jack Smith, but can be viewed in painterly terms as well.
http://www.jackielynn.de/
Joana Dias - Lost in Between (installation)
Joana Dias is a visual artist born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, who has been living in Berlin since 2008. She graduated in Cinematography at Universidade Gama Filho and currently studies photography at the Neue Schule für Photographie in Berlin. Dias synthesizes the random rhythms and intensity of urban life with their symmetry and peculiar details into perceptive, harmonic compositions.
Joana Dias' installation presents the viewer with a photographic narrative, expressed in links, graphics and contrasts, connecting different places, perspectives and colors in a harmonic way.
Nick Dewar - Soapbox (installation)
New Zealand Berlin-based artist in Berlin Nick Dewar uses digital animation, sound and analogue objects such as televisions, cable and domestic objects to create his installations.
"Soapbox" employs audio and video to explore versions of reality, and the distortion of reality through learned information and experience. The soundtrack and installation provide a glimpse of an alternate dimension, where the dissonance and discord hidden beneath the surface of ordinary life is brought to the foreground.
http://nickdewar.tv/
Marcela Donato - At Once (performance)
Brazilian dancer and choreographer Marcela Donato is based in Berlin. She graduated in dance at the UniverCidade in Rio de Janeiro and has since 2007 developed her own choreographical work. As a dancer she worked with Lia Rodrigues, Clebio de Oliveira and Dani Lima. Her choreographic works and videos have been shown in festivals throughout Brazil and Europe. Marcela Donato was one of the founders of the Playground, producing and organizing exhibitions and events.
The solo "At Once" is part of the Solo Performance Commissioning Project in which dancers commission a solo dance from Deborah Hay. She coaches them during an 11-day residency. At the conclusion, each participant commits herself to a daily practice and personal adaptation of the piece for a minimum of three months before their first public performance.
"At Once" was taught to Marcela Donato in Fall 2009. Her Mica Moca performance will be the third presentation of her adaptation.
http://www.marceladonato.com/
Tulip Enterprises - Scripophily (installation)
Tulip Enterprises are a Berlin-based art collective. They imagine themselves "fighting artistic dysfunctionality a day at a time with inclusive art strategies." They do this by way of public art presentations and self-organized exhibitions since 1991. They're also internationally known for their irreverent "ceramixed" porcelain plates.
"Scripophily" refers to the former function of the Mica Moca building as a safe factory. It is inspired by the delirious ornamental language of bonds that is designed to give an aura of value, trust & uniqueness. The way art functions is curiously similar to the way bonds work: Inimitability of the object, and a nervous dependency on hearsay, trends, inside knowledge and specialists are deciding features of the art trade as well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tulip-enterprises/
Przemek Dariuz Fronczak - The String and the Light Bodies (video installation)
Przemek Dariusz Fronczak is a 24 years old video artist living in Berlin, after finishing art school three years ago, he has been developing an oeuvre of installations and paintings. He developed through his website a community that creates a platform for artists under the name dear-us. Dear-us is a development program/company for arts, concepts, movies, music, lifestyle, stories, movement and more.
Przemek Dariusz Fronczak presents an installation inspired by string theory, incorporating prints and analogically manipulated video beamer.
http://www.behance.net/gallery/String-bodys-%28string-theory-concept/1607487
Jens Kloppmann - Fries (woodcutting)
Noted conceptual artist Jens Kloppmann was born in 1969 in Witten. He studied Fine-art at the Bauhaus University in Weimar and at the Kunsthochschule Kassel. Since 1998 he has taught and lectured at numerous universities in Europe.
At Mica Moca Kloppmann installs a large frieze of woodcut figures, executed in the German "Laubsäge" craft technique. Citing historic frieze and panorama techniques which he first used in his Fridericianum exhibition, and perfected in his recent solo show at Kunstraum Richard Sorge, Kloppmann strings his figures taken from the world of pop and history into a discreet installation, designed to be experienced "from the corner of the eye."
http://www.kloppmann.org/
Mia Morikama & Constance Marx - Nectar (performance/installation)
Working internationally, Mia Morikama's work combines fashion, fine art, event concept and food. Her "kapow wow" fashion label creates party wear made from recycled materials. Mia Morikama work has appeared in numerous music videos and fashion shots. She works as a freelance art director and fashion stylist, cooperating on such highly visible projects as the "The Grey Garden" restaurant in New Delhi.
http://www.kapowwowobjects.com/
http://www.facebook.com/TheGreyGarden
French artist and chef Constance Marx's artistic activities range from highly artistic gastronomy performances (recent venues include the .HBC) to synaesthetic multi-media events to photography. Through her art and way of being, the co-founder of Playground Berlin creates her own personal interpretation of society and life.
http://www.myspace.com/scratchfoufounes
"Nectar," Mia Morikama's & Constance Marx's participatory performance series is a "chronic bricolage" incorporating food, found objects, sound and theater in an improvisational way. The piece presents food as energy; shared and consumed in experimental and surprising forms.
Paul Polaris (performance/installation) Tobias von Glenck & Martin Lorenz (music) - von und zu
After finishing her architectural studies at the ETH Zürich in 2009 Paul Polaris works on artistic and architectural projects in Berlin and Zürich. In 2010 she presented a first architectonic intervention at Kunstraum Richard Sorge Berlin. That same year Polaris produced several graphic works, notably for the band RUSCONI and the group show Papergirl#5 at Neurotitan Galerie Berlin. Early 2011 she took part in the exhibition series "Architektur im Würgegriff der Kunst" at Kunstverein Zürich. A first solo show is planned September 2011 in Düsseldorf.
Since 1999 Martin Lorenz works as percussionist and composer in the field of contemporary and experimental music. Gradually he began to extend his percussive arsenal with electronica, enabling him to add sound installations and musical works bordering on club culture to his oeuvre. His work as a dj inspired a limited edition of handcrafted records published by DUMPF EDITION
http://www.martinlorenz.ch/
Tobias von Glenck lives in Berlin and Zürich, working as composer and musician (Martin Hillmann Bass) active in Jazz, Neue Musik, stage- and film music. In 2006 Lipstick-Records published an album of his compositions interpreted by his own jazz quartet "The Lost Souls." Apart from writing dozens of songs for a variety of jazz bands, Tobias von Glenck is producing a growing number of "Neue Musik" compositions. September 2004 he received the "Förderpreis der Europäischen Kulturstiftung." 2008 he was invited as Artist in Residence by Jazzclub Moods in Zürich.
http://www.tobiasvonglenck.com/
For the "von und zu" performance which Paul Polaris presented at Kunstverein Zurich she worked with objects covered in wood-, marble,- and steel-like material and experimented with their sounds and meaning. She has now developed this idea into a cooperation with the two musicians Tobias von Glenck & Martin Lorenz and their project Trabant Echo. With e-bass and turntables they improvise on classical music samples, "imitate" acoustic instruments and thereby generate new sounds. Jointly the three artists explore their aim to work on fragile moments, creating a dense carpet of sounds, movements and images.
http://paulpolaris.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWOh3JJlyY
http://www.trabant-echo.net
Clemence de la Tour du Pin - Countdown (video animation)
Clemence de La Tour du Pin is a French artist currently working in Berlin. Her work appears very conversational, almost like three dimensional diagrams of symbol and language that are strung together by drawings, texts and objects. Her performative installations "become messy monuments to their own creative process," capturing elements of the everyday, with found materials and familiar themes recurring throughout the spaces she manipulates.
Exactly at the middle point of the runtime of the Mica Moca project, Clemence de la Tour du Pin presents an animation which refers to the ephemeral nature of such art projects. With Berlin changing and getting more commercially developed, she questions whether the possibilities it offers to artists will still be available in the future.
http://clemencedelatourdupin.blogspot.com/
Madeline Stillwell - Machine Pipe Drawing (performance, installation, photocollage)
Madeline Stillwell's live performances & installations have been exhibited at institutions in Sweden, Germany and North America. In Berlin her work is regularly presented by Wilde Gallery. She has lectured as a Visiting Artist extensively and currently teaches Performance at several institutions. She lives and works in Berlin.
As in many of her past performances, Madeline Stillwell will make the derelict historic surroundings starting point of her piece, using photographs, and collaging them into the industrial structures of the existing space. She uses wet clay to make marks on the wall that respond to the photographs, the actual space, and the restriction of her body's movements as she attempt to climb upon the pipes and upon the equipment.
"Machine Pipe Drawing" is a two parts performance by Madeline Stillwell, an exploration of public space, internal dialogue, and shared experience. Stillwell aims to investigate conflicting extremes within the human mind, while generating cyclical relationships between self & collective, energy & entropy, production & waste. Conceived as ambient performance piece, it leaves the audience free to come and go.
http://madelinestillwell.com/
André Wakko - Sonematik (audio-visual concert)
Brazilian-born André Carvalho Hostalácio "Wakko," one of Playground Berlin's founders, is an artist based in Berlin who specializes in interactive art, and generative art and sound installations. He's also internationally active as an innovative electronic music producer, musician and dj.
For the Playground Berlin Weekend at Mica Moca, André Wakko presents a special performance of Sonematik, his audio visual concert which integrates new ways of generating audio-visual compositions in real time. The performance leverages a massive screen projection surface as a canvas for exploring dense monochromatic meshes and emergent patterns.
http://www.andrewakko.com/all/generativ_visuals/