VOLTA 8 Basel 201211.-16.6.2012 / Dreispitzhalle

Galleria Heino will present works by the following artists:

IC-98

 

At VOLTA 08 IC-98 is going to show a work entitled Oikoumene. The name Oikoumene refers to the distinction the ancient Greeks made between the known and the unknown worlds. The known world, Oikoumene, was surrounded by river Okeanos, later for ocean.

The work depicts a fortress-like island in the middle of this ocean. The walls are built in concentric circles, creating an onion-like system of closures and openings surrounding an empty centre.

Looking at the installation, the observer can adopt two opposite points of view: a direct aerial perspective of the ideal architecture or an indirect, low panorama view circling the perimeter of the structure, transmitted through the real time camera and manipulated with cgi-effects.

The two "suns" on the wall correspond with this dichotomy: a golden disc etched with the map of the known world and an incomplete frottage replication, the black hole.

IC-98 (originally 'Iconoclast', founded in 1998) are Patrik Söderlund (b. 1974) and Visa Suonpää (b. 1968). IC-98 has received, the Finnish State Prize for Visual Arts in 2009.

IC-98 is interested in events which did not take place, fantastic connections between things, heresies and pure systems of thought, the presence of history in everyday life, the body politic, social formations and architectural constructions, control mechanisms and techniques of escaping them.

The medium of choice always follows the context, its history and the present situation, and the objectives in question. IC-98 does a lot of research, both empirical and archival. Traditional research is combined with intuitive and personal considerations. The final works - drawings, animated films, books or installations - are ambiguous mashups constructed from diverse sources of information. They are stagings, a theatre where the world according to IC-98 is played out. All IC-98 projects can be characterized as narrative constructs, blueprints of the possible or scripts for action, which act as condensations of diverse fluxes, both linguistic and affective.

Patrik Söderlund & Visa Suonpää

Updated information, documentation of all projects, animations and pdf-versions of the IC-98 publications (1998-2011 at: www.socialtoolbox.com