Fatherland - Родина (re-post)

I recently found a post on a Russian blog about my video Fatherland (Experimental Television Center full frame mix), and i was lucky enough to have it translated by my friend Lisa, who is fluent in Russian. With their permission, here is the translation of the post:


Fatherland

Toby Kaufmann-Buhler
6:38

The present film was created at the Experimental Television Center in New York. In essence it is a rather complex video based in several levels: the documentary and the artistic. The relationship between people, space, history, and consciousness is examined. In the course of nearly seven minutes the author tries to draw the observer's attention to the most important aspects of our life. The place we were born, our parents, the path where we took our first steps – all of this forms our subsequent life. And when we return to our homeland, we feel all of the atmosphere that formed us. The landscape changes, but it remains its former self. Just like the characters: besides the director, in the given space we also find the camera-operator, who basically has no relationship to the history of the main character. But from now on he is part of this unified space. Memory – that is what drives the entire human existence. 

About the author
The Englishman Toby Kaufmann-Buhler studies the relationships that exist between the picture, sound, and audience. In each of his films he looks at the picture as a single entity, and as as a way of expressing the director's thoughts. He studied at the University of South Florida (2001) and also at the Royal College of Art (2003).

Installations in time & space, now & then

Begin at the End (1998) - 4 slide projectors/3 soundtracks

Since way back in 1998, installation work has been a big part of what i do.  Thinking about a space, and how the work can be part of that space at that particular time, has been a central preoccupation of mine since those early days.

It's not very often that i'm able to take over a space and work in this way, so each time is usually a very different approach and experience; but i'm fortunate right now to have quite a few recent, current and future opportunities to do this type of work.  The recent Horizon Life installation in the "Time (Im)material" show was a great experience, and was really the culmination of a lot of work, going back a number of years.  

Currently i'm also working on a site-specific video animation piece (with lots of help from Nate Davis and Trent Miller) for a local event, "Bookless", that will be happening in late January in the empty downtown Madison public library (currently closed down for a complete renovation).  This piece uses materials directly from the library, has been shot on-site there, and will be installed in multiple locations inside the library during the event.  So, it will be a completely site-specific installation for the event, and my goal is for it to have a symbiosis with the space, a library empty of its usual inhabitants, the books.  Below is a promo clip for the event, using material from my piece...





Coming up at the beginning of 2013, i'll be having a solo exhibition at the Watrous Gallery here in Madison, which i'm excited about.  Aside from being my first solo show in quite a while, this will be my first opportunity in a long time to take over a space and have multiple works that play off each other.  So, i'm planning to do two installations, and possibly some smaller work, that will hopefully tie together all my work of the past several years.  

One element of installation work that i've always been interested in is that of scale:  with my first back in 1998, i was interested in filling spaces as much as i could, with both projected imagery and sound (to me there was something very theatrical about doing installations, and also illusory, since once the machines were shut off the work would be completely gone).  Then, at grad school in London i started doing very small installations... even when i did a solo show in a one room gallery, i didn't fill the space; it was a collection of loosely-connected elements, all separated in space.  I was going for intimacy with the work, and was trying to turn it toward something more personal as well, so i felt that the installation design needed to reflect this.

In the past several years my installation ideas have grown larger and more complex, but i still want to retain this intimate aspect that i have been cultivating in the work.  I hope to retain a balance between this growth in scale and the more personal ideas i have and will continue to explore. 

Here's an album of photos following the installations i've done since 1998.  

Parting shots...

Yesterday i took down the installation, which (with a bit of help) took only about 3 1/2 hours... compared to the 7 days of work it took to put it up, easy.  

So, here are some last shots i took of the installation, which is about as well documented as i could want.  I'm really happy with how it turned out, and it was well received... since i work so close by i was able to spend a lot of time at the gallery, and it was fun to see how people reacted to the work, took it in, and what it did to the gallery space. 

And it was really enjoyable to be in this show with such great Madison artists... Trent, Susan and Michael have been great to work and show with, and i think this was a very coherent and exploratory group of work.

Up into the mid-show

We're now in the midst of the middle of the show at 1308, and so far it's been well received.  Overall i'm really happy with the show... everyone's work is really good, and it all works really well together in the space.  Here are some photos of it in situ.

There have been some ongoing technical difficulties with my installation, some of which i think have made it difficult for many visitors to get the whole of it.  Early on in the show, there was a problem with the frame and/or the projection... the alignment of the whole projection went off, so we adjusted the positioning of the projector (much simpler than messing with the screens and the frame itself), and that seems to have solved the problem.  Not sure what happened, but this has been fine for a while now... if we're lucky, this will continue to not be a problem.

More problematically, the sound level has been very erratic, which seems to mostly be a technical glitch with the sound system (though we haven't been able to rule out human interference).  Since my office is so close to the gallery, i get to experience this firsthand sometimes when i go over there, but i've also had a few people tell me that they just can't hear the sound.  Obviously, a problem when this large part of the piece isn't discernible... so with my friend Nate's assistance (as if he didn't help out enough with designing/building the frame), i've borrowed a speaker from him and have installed it in the gallery, bypassing the internal sound system, resulting in a consistent soundtrack for the installation.  It sounds really good now... one downside of the gallery sound system was that the speakers are mounted way up in the ceiling, making the sound seem very cavernous (even though it was throughout the gallery).  Now, the sound is actually much closer, and it sounds quite good with Nate's great speaker. 

I've gotten some good feedback about the piece, and i'm hoping for more in the coming weeks.  Below is a bit of video documentation (with overdubbed soundtrack) of the installation... i need to do more of this (and better), but it gives a sense of what the piece is and how it is situated.  

"Time (Im)material" install photos (part 2)

More photos from the show install, very excited...

Michael getting ready to hang his work

more screens!

Susan getting ready to hang her wall pieces

Trent's in to hang his work...

almost there...

"Time (Im)material" install photos (part 1)

So on Friday i was the first one into the gallery to start the install, and there has been no end of stuff to do for my part.  Susan has been coming in since Saturday (and Trent and Michael have dropped by to check in), and Jennifer has been a big help as well with my stuff, along with taking most of the photos documenting the process...  

for me, the hard part:  setting up the frame for the screens...

the frame mounts on these stands, going up to the hanging height of 10'

at the other end of the gallery, Susan starting on her floor installation...

up on the hydraulic lift, beginning work on the wires that will hang the frame from the ceiling...

done with the wires, taking off the tape that secures the frame to the stands, in order to remove the stands...

whoa

it hangs!

now, the harder part, hanging the 24 screens...