“To understand the present means carrying out a kind of rough-and-ready archaeological investigation of world culture, which proceeds just as well through re-enactments as through the presentation of artefacts – or again, through the technique of mixing.” – N. Bourriaud

Hvorslev Art Association presents: ALTER MODERN TIMES Live audio visual performance by Joel Dittrich

With several projectors and speakers; layers of pictures, layers of audio, layers of connotations are re-mediated, re-edited, re-mixed, re-used and misused. It is a journal based work in progress art project (video /sound /graphics /photography), which sprung out of the idea of what energies displacement creates, thoughts on what´s next after postmodernism and a will to explore and invent alternatives to the 9-5-lifestyle. The title is inspired by Nicolas Bourriauds´s book “Altermodern” (Tate Publishing, 2009) and by Charlie Chaplin´s film “Modern Times” (1937).

Ultimately this three month stay in New York City will enlighten me, confuse me, ALTER me – something that I will be able to use as an artist, as a teacher and a disobeying villain.

ABOUT

January to april 2010 I displaced myself from Stockholm to live in an artist loft in Brooklyn, New York. I study (video) art theory at School of Visual Arts, a course called “The Fourth Dimension: Video, Space and The Broken Screen”. I walk the streets, go to different art meetings, nightclubs, stores, tourist attractions, gallerys, museums, home partys, the cinema, etc. I interact with people and ask them why they travel, or more correctly, how they (dis)like NYC. I *save* some of what I think stand out, makes a strong impression, alters me. As this stay is already kind of divergent I felt the urge to also simultaneously go back to my roots in art, which is painting. There for I also take a course at Parsons New School For Design, named Abstracting The Figure – where we draw and paint from nude models.

This citation from the foreword of Altermodern pretty much sums up the base of my project. ”Artists are looking for a new modernity that would be based on translation: What matters today is to translate the cultural values of cultural groups and to connect them to the world network. This ‘reloading process’ of modernism according to the twenty-first-century issues could be called altermodernism, a movement connected to the creolisation of cultures and the fight for autonomy, but also the possibility of producing singularities in a more and more standardized world. /- – -/.” “Under the threat from fundamentalism and consumer-driven uniformisation, menaced by massification and the enforced re-abandonment of individual identity, art today needs to reinvent itself, and on a planetary scale. /- – -/ It is neither a petrified kind of time advancing in loops (postmodernism) nor a linear vision of history (modernism), but a positive experience of disorientation through an art-form exploring all dimensions of the present, tracing lines in all directions of time and space. The artist turns cultural nomad: what remains of the Baudelarian model of modernism is no doubt this flânerie, transformed into a technique for generating creativeness and deriving knowledge.”

This project was made possible by the support from Favrskov Art Committee and the work of Hvorslev Art Association. Camera: Charlotte Antser, edit: Joel Dittrich. Many thanks to, in random order: Marie Marqvard, Jane Susanne Andersen, Lone Christensen, Greta Bay, Vicki Nielsen, Hanne Maagaard Jensen, Lilly Friis, Ejvind Andersen, Thorkild Petersen, Christian Marqvard, Charlotte Antser, Alberto Fernández, Erik Södersten, Fredrik Stjärne, Ricardo Fernandez, Martin Söderblom, Jens Larsson, Gudenådalens Ungdomsskole, Ulstrup Skole, Ulstrup Fonden, Share NYC, O-Space NYC

PERFORMANCES

- Share (Issue Project Room) New York City [US] 21 february and 16 march
- O-Space (One Arm Red) New York City [US] 04 march
- Hvorslev Art Association (Ulstrup Castle) Aarhus/Ulstrup [DK] 16-17 april
- Volt Festival (Ström i P2/Sveriges Radio, Uppsala Koncert & Kongress) Uppsala [SE] 5 june
- Norberg Festival (Mimerlaven, Kraftwerk) Norberg [SE] 29-31 july
- Berlin [DE] TBA

Hecate /DJ, lyrics [DE]
Joel Dittrich /live visuals [SE]

A first work in progress performance of Alter Modern Times, at Share (Project Issue Room), Brooklyn, New York, 21 feb 2010.

The title is inspired by Nicolas Bourriauds´s book “Altermodern” (Tate Publishing, 2009) and by Charlie Chaplin´s film “Modern Times” (1937). It is a journal based art project (video /sound /graphics /photography), which sprung out of the idea of what energies displacement creates, thoughts on what´s next after postmodernism and a will to explore and invent alternatives to the 9-5-lifestyle.

This citation from the foreword of Altermodern pretty much sums up the base of my project: “Under the threat from fundamentalism and consumer-driven uniformisation, menaced by massification and the enforced re-abandonment of individual identity, art today needs to reinvent itself, and on a planetary scale. /- – -/ It is neither a petrified kind of time advancing in loops (postmodernism) nor a linear vision of history (modernism), but a positive experience of disorientation through an art-form exploring all dimensions of the present, tracing lines in all directions of time and space. The artist turns cultural nomad: what remains of the Baudelarian model of modernism is no doubt this flânerie, transformed into a technique for generating creativeness and deriving knowledge.”

About the venue: “ISSUE Project Room provides an open and versatile environment where both established and emerging artists can conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work according to their respective visions. Through an evolving collaboration with curators, artists and educators, ISSUE Project Room fosters a wide-range of artistic projects that challenge and expand conventional practices in art.”

Alter Modern Times live audio visual performance:

- Share (Issue Project Room) New York City [US] 21 february and 16 march
- O-Space (One Arm Red) New York City [US] 04 march
- Hvorslev Art Association (Ulstrup Castle) Aarhus/Ulstrup [DK] 16-17 april
- Volt Festival (Ström i P2/Sveriges Radio, Uppsala Koncert & Kongress) Uppsala [SE] 5 june
- Norberg Festival (Mimerlaven, Kraftwerk) Norberg [SE] 29-31 july
- Berlin [DE] TBA
- San Francisco [US] TBA
- São Paulo [BR] TBA

This the invitation for for diploma work performance. See de documenting video here!

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In collaboration with Max Sokoleski aka. Maakss, musician and sound artist [Smuts, Maxxal].

Research in the now-and-there, here-and-then. How do one experience the (re)mediation of space and time during a live visual/VJ-ing or live audio visual performance? For example, is it possible to take the pictures into the room, instead of the opposite?

This film is the documentation of a live audio visual performance by me and Sokoleski, which took place at Konstfack 23.05-2008. Our collaboration started with this project and what you see is an outcome of the artistic part in the research for my degree project, at the Department of Art Education at Konstfack University College of Arts Crafts and Design.

It all emerged out of the theories on remediation [Bolter and Grusin 2000] and thoughts on synesthetic experiences. [Asplund 2003]

The thesis is beeing published mid 2009, until then, take 13 minutes to sit back and enjoy your self!

Syftet med denna workshop/föreläsning var att ge en känsla för den typ av arbetsflöde man har med visuals. Vi provade att abstrahera materialet, samt ge det en twist mot flicker movies, med puls och entropi i bakhuvudet. Grundmaterialet var dels några filer från

Vi kopplade samman laptops via en analog videomixer och skapade live visuals till clicks n´cuts/noise av Håkan Lidbo. Innan vi körde igång såg vi några filmer från medföljande DVDn till D-Fuse bok “VJ: Audio-Visual Art + VJ Culture” [Laurence King 2006].

Temat var formless, utifrån teorier av fransmannen George Bataille (1897-1962), som var filosof och författare. Han var 1929-1930 redaktör för tidskriften “Documents” som blandade konst, arkeologi, etnografi och populärkultur på ett sådant sätt att koventionella idéer om det så kallade primitiva och det så kallade ideala omkullvältes. Bataille motsatte sig den akademiska världen och dess idé om ett system med en allomfattande ordning och mätbarhet. Detta gör formless intressant att ha som utgångspunkt under en VJ-workshop i en akademisk kontext. Kanske man kortfattat kan säga att begreppett formless handlar om att ifrågasätta vad som egentligen är “hög konst”, om nu något alls kan vara det i vårt efter-postmodernismen-samhälle…?

Formless har 1996 av Rosalind Krauss och Yves Alain-Bois delats in i fyra kategorier: låga material, horisontalitet, puls och entropi. Live visuals/VJ-ing förhåller sig ofta till alla fyra, precis som man också kan relatera live visuals/VJ-ing till samma områden som det skrevs om i Documents.

Efter en genomgång av grundläggande funktioner och möjligheter i Modul8 fick deltagarna själva experimentera fritt.

Jag pratade också om vårt community Swedish VJ Union, som då hösten 2008 precis höll på att bildas.