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750 Marguerite Dr Winston Salem, NC 27106-5861 • 336.725.1904
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Inside Out: Artists in the Community II:
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   Anna von Gwinner, Minus 8, Video Installation, 2005 |
Exploring the relationship between place and its perception, Berlin-based artist and architect Anna von Gwinner uses video projection to re-imagine the urban landscape. In these videos, she transforms ordinary scenes -- such as a balls bouncing, rabbits playing, water pouring, or people ice skating -- into extraordinary projections. She does so via shifts in scale, focus and framing: re-sizing her subjects into monstrous silhouettes and shrinking shadows as they move in and out of the camera's frame. The full effect of the projections is, however, only felt when married with sites that von Gwinner carefully selects and transforms.
As the projection is fused with its place, an installation emerges that re-maps our understanding of seemingly familiar surroundings. From dark, cavernous warehouse spaces and soaring church ceilings to abandoned downtown storefronts and the windows of a parked van, von Gwinner's work has appeared in venues as diverse as her chosen subjects. Yet despite their varied settings, the work is unwavering in its playful, yet profound challenge to the architectures that shape cities, and the ways we navigate them.
During her time in North Carolina, von Gwinner worked with an RV storage container at the Moore Self-Storage facility, as well as the Loewy Building in downtown Winston-Salem. In the storage unit, she married the height, acoustics and vacancy of the space with a metaphor for the world's present economic state. More specifically, balls of all shapes, sizes and colors sped through the frame without fully revealing their path -- falling, bouncing and rebounding in a bewildering rhythm that fills the otherwise darkened space.
In the Loewy Building, von Gwinner fills a street-facing window with the silhouetted forms of figure skaters practicing their lyrical routines. As these figures glide, soar and pirouette through space, the artist creates a parallel world where Winston-Salem traditions of theater, athletics and ghost stories entwine.
www.annavongwinner.de
    Click the images above to view video of the Switch Video Project in action! |
SECCA helped young students understand each other, their diverse backgrounds and the places where they live through an innovative video project. During the program, students from Winston-Salem worked with students living in South Korea.
Called The Switch Video Project, SECCA's educational program involved students from two high schools -- West Forsyth High School's National Art Honor Society students in Clemmons, N.C., and Lincoln High School in Seoul, South Korea. The program took place April 8-22 and was taught by Maya Gilliam, a local artist/educator and owner of III Eye Digital, a local multimedia firm.
This project is part of the educational program developed to support SECCA's Inside Out: Artists in the Community II public art program. An imaginative cultural exchange program, Switch Video was presented in conjunction with Berlin, Germany artist Anna Von Gwinner's video installations, a part of SECCA's year-long public art program. Von Gwinner is one of seven artists creating public art in Winston-Salem during 2009.
The students explored and documented their specific "locals" through video and other new media tools.
Students in each class used Skype&trade, a web-based video-conferencing software, to consider the differences and similarities with their counterparts' places and lifestyles. During the project, students explored the intersection of place, identity and how they construct their identities and understand the unique status of project participants from their partner country.
After documenting their lives, the West Forsyth students "switched" or traded their video footage with the Korean students who reconstructed each other's video content. The switch underscores the importance of each groups' communication during the process in order to construct a result that was authentic to their counterpart's identity in the final video.
With this project students explored how place informs identity. Students utilized a free online software (Animoto.com) using photo, video & text as their artistic tools.
Sponsors for The Switch Video Project included West Forsyth High School, III Digital, a Winston-Salem multimedia design firm, and the Flip Video Spotlight&trade program.
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SECCA was pleased to co-present this lecture with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte's College of Arts + Architecture. During her talk, Anna von Gwinner (Berlin, Germany) discussed select projects through a range of documentation including videos and photographs. The artist addressed the creative potential found in the temporary manipulation of an architectural space through video-based practices and photography.
Anna von Gwinner studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths' College in London and Architecture at the UdK in Berlin. Following her studies, the artist maintained a succesful architectural practice for several years, which informs her ability to explore and manipulate space. Von Gwinner's temporary site-specific installations have inhabited public spaces ranging from storefronts, to cathedrals, to industrial spaces, to mobile venues such as vans. Each installation is positioned to catch the attention of passersby, and inspire them to re-imagine the urban landscape. From the playful rendering of ice-skaters, to the slow-motion leap of a trampoliner, to the downpour of water, von Gwinner uses short video loops to create imaginary moments in the life of a city.
A podcast of this lecture is now available. Click here to view the podcast.
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