katalog

АРНАуТ мИК
AERNOUt MiK
128
Aernout Mik’s work seamlessly combines expert filmmaking,
elegant architecture, an understanding of group behavior,
an appreciation of how people move through various types
of space, and a keen sense of social responsibility. It subverts
both notions of art's traditional disciplines and conventional
ways of thinking bout it. Mik sculpts walls in which screens
adhere; or he makes his “freestanding” screens into sculpt-
ural objects that invite their own contemplation from viewers.
In encountering a piece by Mik there are many aspects to
consider: how the images on the screen arrest the viewer
and then how they may be read; the shape, size, and place-
ment of the screen itself; the relationship of the screen to its
frame (if it has one) and certainly to the wall(s) away from
which the screen “stands”; and because the screens frequently
touch the floor and are built lower than the height
of the average person, one also has to consider the other
viewers who come upon, stop, move about and experience
Mik’s work. He assumes, quite rightly, that viewers attend
his pieces with a baggage of information derived from mass
media. His moving images refer to current events—protests,
police actions, reactions to catastrophes—without ever
explaining or specifying them. With sweeping cameras
Mik records what appears to be an event in which there are
separate groups, sometimes co-mingling and absorbing one
into the other, and sometimes remaining apart. An intimation
of impending violence is obtained. But there is no
resolution because there is no drama. In a Mik event things
may happen, but they happen without regard to plot and
with no semblance of beginning, middle or end. Things
happen over a certain period, and then, after a while, they
happen again. Mik’s pieces are time-based, but he cannily
squeezes out the notion of duration from time,making that
particular measure dimensionless. We will consider three
of his most distinctive works. Schoolyard (2009), a two
screen piece, is classic Mik. It stops the unsuspecting
viewer in their tracks.
Describing some disturbance in a vocational school
which is being evacuated, the images suggest a cultural
conflict which may turn brutal. Its large cast is splintered
into various groups choreographed with purpose, but those
purposes are never articulated. Vacuum Room (2005) is
a gallery piece, as required by its architecture. Rear
projectors cast images from surveillance cameras in a
legislative or judicial chamber into which protestors burst,
interrupting a session. The enveloping nature of the piece,
and the idea that the cameras, being surveillance, are fixed
in place and cannot move except on their own axis, make
this work distinctive. Finally, Raw Footage (2006), is in its
conception unlike Mik’s other works. It is edited from unused
newsreel footage shot during the civil war in the Balkans.
Mik took the footage as it came from the camera, both
image and sound (this is the only one of Mik’s pieces with
a track), and edited it into “chapters” or “episodes” with
darkness between incidents. Although Raw Footage uses
documentary material of soldiers and civilians assuming
a normalcy in a time of crises, its actuality indicates how
slippery and strange reality is, affirming with a quiet devastation
the adage “Truth is Stranger than Fiction”.
Laurence Kardish
in Exit 100 Video Artist, Exitmedia, 2010
Pages 122–123 and 126–127:
stills from Scapegoats, 2006
video installation, digital video on hard drive, freestanding screen, 39 minutes
Produced by bak, basis voor actuele kunst and the artist
courtesy carlier | gebauer, berlin
Page 125:
installation view: kunstverein hannover, 2007
Photographer: raimund zakowski
courtesy carlier | gebauer, berlin
Scapegoats, 2006
Scapegoats is set in and around an unspecified sports arena.
Most of the action takes place in a large area at the center
of the complex, which has been transformed into a refugee
camp or holding point of some kind. Stations devoted to
different functions—sleeping, cooking, storage, medical
care—have been loosely organized into zones. Military
operations dominate the entire atmosphere, from combat
trucks parked inside the arena to frequent displays of
weaponry. The people inhabiting the scene can be broken
down into two groups: Those who are in control and those
who must follow orders. Commanders continually line up
their charges, only sometimes allowing them to rest on the
ground with their hands on their heads. An adolescent boy
is given the responsibility of carrying a rifle as he patrols
a group of detainees. At the same time, more prosaic scenes
unfold: a portable stove and cafe tables form a makeshift
canteen and cots provide a place to rest.
The divisions and allegiances between the groups remain
tenuous. The captors wear military-oriented garb, but the
aernout mik was born 1962 in the Netherlands, where he lives and works.since 1995 aernout mik is working with film, video,
photography in order to create laboratory settings which, parallel to the real world, create situations reflecting on the conditions
of humans at work, at play etc. his video installations are a delicate act of balance between staged drama or real event. reconstructing
events on the periphery of our social reality, mik constantly shows scenarios shaped by hierarchy or political domination.
ragtag nature of their clothes does not belie any distinct
political leaning or nationality. The visual similarities
between all of the factions—soldiers, prisoners in uniform,
and those who are partially dressed in both civilian and
military attire—further the confusion and make it impossible
to place people into distinct categories. Nor is it clear
if the “prisoners” may actually be dangerous. The aggressors
instigate frequent movement, making their enemies line up,
sit down, march, and move to the exterior of the building,
where they continue to shove, kick, and reprimand. At one
point, there is a sudden reversal of roles and the captives
temporarily take over. As the film continues on a loop,
everyone keeps marching and the guns always seem just
a moment from firing.
Kelly Sidley
From the catalogue: Aernout Mik, The Museum
of Modern Art, New York, 2009
129