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евА КОK
EvA KOCh
104
We are always in a field of interpretation
In general Eva Koch’s videos are concerned with human
relations and communication, and with what we as human
beings have in common, rather than the differences between
us. Eva Koch’s work can be seen as a constant insistence
that art can constitute a common human language that gives
us a better understanding of ourselves and one another. The
word communication derives from the Latin communicare:
to make something common property. To communicate is
an attempt at sharing something, at entering into a community
with others. As Eva Koch has said in an interview: ”I
try to communicate in the way I find to be the most direct.
I realise that people today are extremely good at reading
and decoding moving images, even those subjected to all
the effects; I care about the subject, action or feeling I work
with. And I try to capture it with the simplest means at my
disposal, avoiding too much noise or non-essential ornament…”*
The work NoМad is in many ways representative of Eva
Koch’s oeuvre. It is a poetic and open work with room for
many interpretations, but it is first and foremost a depiction
of man as a being borne by longing and dreams and by a
certain portion of defiance. Man as an existential nomadic
being always on the move. On a thin line, a narrow pier
extended between the sky and the sea, we see people
walking. Some are walking forward, some are returning
in the sense that we Westerners view a movement from left
to right as going forward and vice-versa. Their progress is
not without risk; heavy waves constantly wash in over the
pier and the walkers, who nevertheless continue undeterred
on their way. As we see them, they are coming from nothing
and walking towards nothing. Just as purposelessly and
borne by the same stubbornness as the teeming of ants in
an anthill they walk and walk, and while the energy with
which they are moving seems to witness to a goal at the
end, we never see it, just as we do not know where they are
coming from. The pier, which is now visible, now covered
by the water, is temporarily a passage that connects two
places. A gap between a here and a there. The sound track
consists of an artificial noise reminiscent of rising and
crashing waves. In the sound track there are brief intervals
of absolute quiet, which like the pier form a bridge between
a here and a there. The pause is always prerequisite in sound
and music. It is the interval between sounds that makes it
possible to hear them. Without the intervals, the recurrent
punctuation of quietness, speech would fuse into an undif-
ferentiated mass. The interval is necessary for understanding.
In NoМad, as in other of Eva Koch’s works, she shows how
human perception always and involuntarily seeks to link
sound and image in order to form a meaningful, but in
actual fact fictive, reality, an interpretation.
The video installation Approach, first shown at the
Venice Biennial in 2005, is one of Eva Koch’s main works.
We see a group of people clad in grey standing in a circular
courtyard. This is a choir of deaf people, and with their
hands and facial gestures, the signed language of the deaf,
the choir recites a text from Dante’s Divine Comedy. In
parallel with the choir’s recitation we hear a voice reading
the same text in English. This is the passage where Dante’s
protégé Virgil addresses Apollo entreating the God to give
him the strength to retain just a fraction of what he has seen
on his journey to Paradise. The passage has to do with despair
at the fact that man is unable to govern recollection, but that
experiences and revelations are ephemeral quantities that
cannot be preserved by an act of the will.
Not speak; for nearing its desired end,
our intellect sinks into an abyss
so deep that memory fails to follow it.
By choosing a passage where it is Apollo who is being addres-
sed, Eva Koch points out that man has always felt himself
to be powerless and also that religion is a phenomenon that
predates Christianity.
The work contains two kinds of speech, auditory speech
and visual sign language. People who understand one of
these languages rarely understand the other. It is one and
the same content that is being formulated, but as viewer and
listener we find ourselves between two equally valid state-
ments, a concentrated expression of the situation in which
we permanently find ourselves, in our relation to the world.
* Black Box Illuminated: Coincidences and differences: An interview with Eva Koch.
by marianne Torp. Propexus, sweden
Eva koch was born 1953. she lives and works in denmark. a frequent theme in her video art has been the anonymous individual
seen from the perspective of the collective. she focuses especially on human conditions, communication and the common
denominator.
Namely of interpretation. The unambiguous communication
of which we dream does not exist. We are always in a field
of interpretation. And even if we speak the same language,
it is not given that we understand the same thing. As always
we are left to decode or are obliged to make do with the
particular interpretation that we happen to have an ear to
hear or an eye to see in order to understand. Parallel with
this there exist other interpretations, other nuances in
consequence of which nobody has precisely the same
impression of the same experience. Understanding and
cognition are always a form of approach, and we never
receive the full and entire picture. Approach employs few
and unspectacular effects; the colours are muted and the
sound track consists of a single speaking voice. That is
precisely why its impact is so direct, so deeply moving and
insistent, at the same time as its avoidance of the immediately
obvious opens the viewer’s eyes to the nuances, just as was
the case in NoMad. Both are works that explore existential
questions, that is to say, what it means to be a human being,
without imposing rigid interpretations or intentions on the
viewer. There is room for the viewer in Eva Koch’s works.
Eva Koch’s works revolve around our understanding of
what we call reality. We inhabit the same earth, we do the
same things, and perhaps we even speak the same language.
But this does not mean that we perceive and understand
things in the same way. We are subjective beings, each with
our own interpretative apparatus, our own filter that the
information we receive must pass through. This means that
we are in fact very rarely in the same reality. The magic
moment occurs when art succeeds in creating a bridge, in
removing the barriers for a short almost impossible instant,
in showing that against all appearances we have more in
common than separates us. Eva Koch’s works are such
attempts at creating a third language. A meeting-place.
Mai Misfeldt
Pages 98–99:
still from Approach, 2005
video installation, 3 minutes 20 seconds
courtesy Eva koch and martin asbæk gallery, copenhagen
Pages 102–103:
still from NoMad, 1998
video installation, 11 minutes
camera: dave borthwick, Edit: Niels grønlykke, sound editing: Peter sørensen
courtesy Eva koch and martin asbæk gallery, copenhagen
ParadisO caNTO 01
The glory of the One who moves all things
permeates the universe and glows
in one part more and in another less.
i was within the heaven that receives
more of the light; and i saw things that he
who from that height descends, forgets or can
not speak; for nearing its desired end,
our intellect sinks into an abyss
so deep that memory fails to follow it.
Nevertheless, as much as i, within
my mind, could treasure of the wonderous kingdom
shall now become the matter of my song.
O good apollo, for this final task
make me the vessel of your excellence,
what you, to merit your loved laurel, ask.
Until this point, one of Parnassus’ peaks
sufficed for me; but now i face the test
the agon that is left; i need both crests.
Enter into my breast; within me breathe
the very power you made manifest
when you drew marsyas out from his limbs’ sheath.
O godly force, if you so lend yourself
to me, that i might show the shadow of
the blessed realm inscribed within my mind,
then you would see me underneath the tree
you love; there i shall take as crown the leaves
of which my theme and you shall make me worthy.
so seldom, father, are those garlands gathered
for triumph of a ruler or a poeta
sign of fault or shame in human wills-
that when Peneian branches can incite
someone to long and thirst for them, delight
must fill the happy delphic deity.
great fire can follow a small spark: there may
be better voices after me to pray
to cyrrha’s god for aid-that he may answer.
The lantern of the world approaches mortals
by varied paths; but on that way which links
four circles with three crosses, it emerges
joined to a better constellation and
along a better course, and it can temper
and stamp the world’s wax more in its own manner.
* dante alighieri, The Divine Comedy (Paradise, the first 14 verses)
Translated by mandelbaum Tr.
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