Epress.am News from Armenia
A new exhibit organized by the Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory (ACSL) and the Department of Fine Arts at the Armenia Open University, launched on Nov. 1, uses mixed media and video materials to address “Armenia’s current climate, the strategies to conceptualize ideologies, and the relationship between preconceptions and subjectivities.”
The exhibit — titled “Untitled Armenia” — is the work of two artists-in-residence: Shaun Stamp (UK) and Ajke Lutkemoller (The Netherlands).
The description of and background to the work and the exhibit posted on Facebook reads as follow:
“The concept was looking in at Armenia as a Subject in order to evolve into a Project.
“‘Untitled Armenia’ is concerned with the socio-political dimensions of Armenia’s current climate, the strategies to conceptualize ideologies, and the relationship between preconceptions and subjectivities. By addressing these ideas in a philosophical route guided by texts on the writer Vilém Flusser, Shaun Stamp & Ajke Lutkemoller address the current state of Armenia’s climate and socio-political role.
“The exhibition is a part of the ‘Two Minds Better Than One’ project: it aims to play between the faults of humanistic preconceived ideas and through Vilém Flusser’s philosophies to understand progression in the mechanics of Technology and that of Identity. The work is a transmutation on sociopolitical and geographical structures in Armenia, through the use and reflection of media.
“For their work in progress, Untitled 2010, the artists used found objects located and discovered along the roads, train tracks and trash heaps: collecting wheels, stripping cassette players, and objects in order to create their Kinetic Sculpture. Both artists took a route of intuition and chance in order to find materials.
The artists’ video work, titled Around 3 am 2010 – Another building, somewhere around 4 am 2010, are a series addressing the concepts of Flusser’s ideas of defining concepts on the outsider and identity, using the Other to question process of their own theories.
Flusser argues that modern societies are in flux, with culture being challenged by global circulatory networks and a growth in visual stimulation. He posits that these changes will radically alter the ways cultures define themselves and deal with each other. Not just theories of globalization, however, Flusser’s ideas about communication and identity have their roots in concepts of determination and realization through the recognition of the ‘Other’. Both artists use their intuition to address Flusser’s theories, critically transcending his philosophies into reference points in order to address the ‘Other’.”
The exhibit is open to the public and runs through till Nov. 4 at 8 pm. It can be viewed at the Armenia Open University’s Department of Fine Arts, 37 Moskovyan St., Yerevan.
Photo of the artists’ work courtesy of the Art and Cultural Studies Laboratory Facebook page.