On Hoogtij #63 Friday, November 27th, we open with Linked Objects, a collection of 36 films made by 36 artists during quarantine. The works are a meditation on our interconnectedness in times of isolation and forceful separation. The project was initiated by the International Environmental Art Symposium and Nine Dragon Heads, during the covid outbreak. Screenings have been realized in Sarajevo (BiH) as part of the IV International Online Art Festival Grad 2020 – Moja kuća (My house); at Cheongju Museum of Art (KR); in Palace de SEOUL (KR); at the Espace Juraplatz, Biel, Switzerland (CH) and at Avalanche Art Space, Great Barrington, Ma (US) and at Artisterium, Tbilisi (GE). Linked Objects will be open as well on Saturday, Nov 28th.
Artists
Ali Bramwell (NZ), Alois Schild (AT), Antti Tenetz (FI), Biro Jozsef (HU), Bruce Allan (GB), Brigitte & Gabriela (AT), Channa Boon (NL), Christophe Doucet (FR), Dana LaMonda (NL), Daniela de Maddalena (CH), Denizhan Ozer (TK), Enrique Muñoz García (CL/CH), Diek Grobler (ZA), Fred Luide (CH), Gabriel Adams (US), Gordana Andjelic (BiH), Hannes Egger (IT), Iliko Zautashvili (GE), Ingrid Rollema (HL), Jason Hawkes (AU), Jayne Dyer (PT), Jessy Theo Rahman (SR), Josephine Turalba (PH), Kelli Sharp (AU), Lois Schenk (AU), Ludmila Rodrigues (NL/BR), Magda Guruli (GE), Max Buhlmann (CH), Mike Rijnierse (NL), Mike Watson & Jussi (IT/FI), Nandin Edrene (MO), Oona Hyland(IR), Pang Hyosung (KR), Paul Donker Duyvis (NL), Park Byounguk (KR), Pietertje van Splunter (NL), Phil Dadson (NZ), Rosh Abdelfatah (SY), So Young (KR), Susanne Muller CH), Thom Vink (NL), Yoko Kajio (JP).
Linked Objects is initiated by the International Environmental Art Symposium / Nine Dragon Heads. The project comprises an exhibition and conference dedicated to the wider perception of the COVID-19 consequences in contemporary culture and art.
It is said that digital communication has made the world smaller, and that we are interconnected through our avatars in the virtual world. What the outbreak of the COVID-19 has clearly shown is that we are connected through our real bodies as well in an analog world. This bond turned out to be no less solid or mutually influential than any world wide web.
Today in “lockdown”, we are linked to each other not only through social networks, messages and emails but also by the shared fears and hopes for medical treatment that can bring the rapid changes “back to normal”. We try to understand and assess the situation we find ourselves in. In our bizarre life-saving encapsulation, with numerous questions and expectations, we attempt to cope with separation, staying still and online.
The world that has stopped feels especially challenging for creative communities and the artists of projects such as to Nine Dragon Heads’ (NDH), working in post-studio, experimental or performative modes. Their creative impulse has always been linked to public space, to traveling, to the contact with others and with nature, at various corners of the world. The encounters with thought-provoking people and places are their inspiration and driving force.
The project Linked Objects provides a space to meditate on our interconnectedness in times of isolation and forceful separation. A condition similar to what German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers calls a limit situation. The term describes situations that disturb us, forcing us towards somewhat alternative self-identifications, and eliminates us from social connections, obliging us to survive and seek alarming ways of communication. In the electronic world, on the other hand, a “linked object” is an object such as a graphic, a piece of text, a file, which is included within a hypertext document in such a way that it is linked to the source file. So that whenever the source changes, the object automatically gets updated.