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GERHARD TREML & LEO CALICE

EDEN’S EDGE
Date: 2014
Length: 27:07 min.
Format: 16:9
Specifications: Farbe, Ton, Einkanal / Installation
Eden’s Edge Research Team: Lissy Marko, Edith Schwarzl, Christina Linortner
Courtesy: Treml&Calice

Ohne Horizont und Perspektive bewegen sich die Figuren in EDEN’S EDGE durch statische Aufnahmen der kalifornischen Wüste. Bemerkenswerte, eigenwillige Lebensentwürfe präsentieren sich auf der Basis ebenso unkonventioneller Landschaften. Unkonventionell, gegenkonventionell − ›counterculture‹. Die Figuren sind Protagonisten dieser Gegenkulturen der 1960er Jahre. Sie repräsentieren Aktivismus, Pazifismus, spirituelle Selbstfindung und Naturverbundenheit. Heute gescheiterte Existenzen und überholte Modelle? Vielleicht. Allerdings nur gemessen an einem Idealbild, dessen Standards für die ›echte‹ Avantgarde ohnehin nie Gültigkeit besaß. Alle sind verbunden durch den Ort der Wüste, ›terra incognita‹ und Leerstelle für Träume und den Wunsch nach einem ›anderen‹ Leben. Und so sind die Lebenswege und -geschichten keine geradlinigen Narrative. Sie sind vielmehr durch Kurven und Umwege bestimmt, aber auch durch Freiheit. Die Wüste ist paradox, sie ist Freiheit und Einschränkung, lebensfeindlich und Möglichkeit zur Selbstverwirklichung − widersprüchlich wie EDEN’S EDGE selbst. Das Künstlerduo Treml & Calice zeigt alles und nichts: die strengen Aufsichten bleiben in weiter Ferne, so nah die Stimmen auch scheinen mögen, es sind persönlichste Geschichten in stilisierten Landschaften, ohne Horizont und Perspektive.

Jan Harms

Gerhard Treml
* 1963 in Salzburg AUT, lebt und arbeitet in Wien AUT
Studium an der Universität Salzburg AUT und der Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien AUT
Leo Calice
* 1980 in St. Gotthard AUT
Studium an der Universität für Angewandte Kunst Wien AUT

 

Interview:

» 1. Your work has been chosen among over 1200 festival entries to participate in VIDEONALE.15. In which context do you prefer to present your work, festival/cinema context or exhibition? And what kind of difference does the respective mode of presentation mean for you / your work?

Calice: This piece was originally planed as an Installation. I like seeing it as such. However we recently found out that it works quite well on cinema screens too, which was very interessting. I have the feeling people’s expectations are a little different in the cinema than in exhibitions so the discourse changes a little. In the cinema my impression was that the piece is more fictional but the question whether or not seemed less relevant.

Treml: We originally designed this video for the exhibition context. Its bird’s eye view seems to ask for a vertical projection. We never really were thinking in cinematic terms. But when we saw the piece in Vienna’s filmfestival (Viennale) on the large screen we were worried that the audience would suffer from vertigo.  But people felt fine, they were just more engaged with the stories than the gallery audience. And it raised new questions about telling stories from that top-down perspective.

» 2. How do you see “The Call of the Wild“ reflected in your work presented at VIDEONALE.15?

Calice: I see it reflected in multible layers. To point out one: The piece is about The Californian desert, a landscape we all know, although we might not have been there yet. It plays a leading part in Hollywood’s productions of the wild west, the new frontier, the land of the free etc. Stories we directly connect with the wild. By taking the POV to the bird eye’s view we simply eliminated all those myths and could listen to the real life stories inhabitating this rather hostile part of the earth.

Treml: In our video we portrayed Hollywood’s probably most iconic landscape of the Wild West by the life-stories of its actual people. This gave us first hand accounts of a culture in which the hard edges of reality again and again  surpassed ideas of the wild in fiction. Most interestingly, however, storytelling as such stood out as a powerful tool to cope with wilderness as a starategy of survival, to build a new beginning, new identites, new opportunities and ways of living.

» 3. Can you describe your intention for doing art in one sentence?

Calice: Not really.

Treml: I am interested in narratives as a medium to appropriate, explore and produce reality

» 4. In which way is the video medium an excellent possibility to express your intended subjects, especially in contrast to other media you use? Or do you work exclusively with video?

Calice: In this piece the medium plays a major conceptual part as powerful and popular tool for the production of reality. But igenerally speaking I don’t work exclusively with Video but it fasciantes me a lot.

Treml: Most of my work is story based. The medium I chose strongly depends on the artistsic context, situation and concept for a piece. I often use drawings and text to develop my work. The result may be an installation, photographies or interventions for public spaces. This video is actually the first time I used this medium. And I am a bit afraid its quite addictive.

» 5. If you have the chance to ask the visitors of the VIDEONALE.15 exhibition questions about your own work, what would be your question?

Calice: How did they realize that POV? ☺

Treml: Within our series,  whats your favorite piece and why?