A Domestic Image of Preemption | Lubomirov-Easton | Apr 2013

A Domestic Image

of Preemption

Helene Kazan

Lubomirov-Easton

Enclave 8, 50 Resolution Way, Deptford SE8 4AL

Private View: Friday 26 April, 6-9.30pm

Artist's Performance Lecture: Saturday 4 May, 4pm

Exhibition Dates: 26 April to 24 May, Wednesday to Saturday, 12-6pm

‘A Domestic Image of Preemption’, a multimedia installation by Helene Kazan, sets the ordinary image of the domestic space against a complex conceptual framework of preemption. Bringing together under one roof a sequence of interacting moving images made using a unique methodology of extracting visual information found in a set of photographs, the space depicted in each is reproduced, with the films revealing the potentially catastrophic breaking point under which each photograph is generated. Here, the architecture of the home is shown to transform, through a set of overarching conditions, from a space of shelter to a space of potent threat.

Whilst preemptive action has been etched into our collective consciousness through its application as a strategy of war, Kazan’s claim is that there is no less at stake when such measures are applied to the domestic context. Rather a reproduction of scale is performed, bringing into focus actions of a necessary fortification that take place within the domestic realm: for instance, the use of tape to prevent glass windows shattering when exposed to violent force during natural disaster or armed conflict. As such, the focus for this exhibition is image production – above all photography – as a preemptive act.

Exploring the conditions that provoke such actions, Kazan draws on the idea that any potential threat to the assumed security of this environment creates a situation that reconfigures the relationship between past, present and future. Rather than preventing future catastrophe, preemptive action becomes a driving force inducing it into the present. This proposition is unfolded from two standpoints: a series of photographs taken of Kazan’s own home during the Lebanese Civil War in 1989 and a set of images produced as a home insurance inventory in the UK in 2013.

Operating through the potential of these visual objects and unlocking the information harboured within them, Kazan utilises the elasticity and fluidity of time that is brought to light by this conceptual framework. The tensions of a limited futurity are activated through the use of filmmaking processes to trick time, capture it and then playfully traverse through it. Revealing to the viewer a narrated dialogue formed between the independent, yet interconnected scenarios. Illustrating the dissemination of sovereign power through these conditions, and therefore how domestic space is re-fabricated within the parameters of its control.

Helene Kazan is a multidisciplinary artist who has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. Across her practice, she uses research and archival material to generate moving image and mixed media sculptural installations. She is currently completing a Masters at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London. 

www.helenekazan.co.uk

Curated by Iavor Lubomirov and Bella Easton. Text by Helene Kazan.

www.lubomirov-easton.com/A-Domestic-Image-of-Preemption

Images of Terror, Narratives of (In)security | University of Lisbon, Portugal | Apr 2013

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE

Images of Terror, Narratives of (In)security:

Literary, Artistic and Cultural Responses

23rd and 24th April 2013

Faculty of Letters, University of Lisbon, Portugal

One of the greatest paradoxes of the 21st century is the fact that, even though western societies have reached an outstanding scientific and technological development, fear and insecurity continue to be very much alive in public discourse as well as in our private life. Concerns about terrorism, urban criminality, global epidemics, computer piracy and organized crime and, more recently, about the outcomes of the financial and economic crises circulate widely in the media and their highly politicized representations shape much of our everyday life.

To what extent are many of these (in)securities real, exaggerated or constructed? What explains the disparate amount of attention paid to different sources of insecurity? Why do certain forms of “terror” achieve the status of “spectacles” and “memorable events”, while others receive comparatively little attention by the media and popular discourse?

In this conference we aim to examine how literature, art and culture have dealt with notions of insecurity and to what extent they have provided significant challenges and responses to hegemonic discourses.  

Panel: Preemptive Images

Susan Schuppli - The forensic futures of the image

Goldsmiths University of London

Shela Sheikh - Terror on loop

Goldsmiths University of London

Helene Kazan - A domestic image of preemption

Goldsmiths University of London

http://conferencecilm.weebly.com/

Social Structures | Batroun Projects - Lebanon | Mar 2013

Batroun Projects presents:

Social Structures
An event including works by Rehana Zaman and a montage of video material screened by Helene Kazan.
30th March 18.00 – 22.00

Accompanying the event will be a Bar, BBQ and Dj’s (tbc).

Rehana Zaman
Throughout March London based artist Rehana Zaman has been in residence at Batroun Projects and Mansion, Beirut. During her residency Zaman has temporarily relocated her practice that encompasses performance, video and text, to Lebanon. Using the Lebanese context to extend her interest in how narrative abstraction and composition might relate to particular socio-political experiences, for this presentation Zaman will be using the space at Batroun Projects to present an expanded ‘open form’ artist talk.

Zaman’s work was recently presented in a solo exhibition at Studio Voltaire, London. She has also appeared in group shows at The Showroom, Limoncello, the Whitechapel Gallery, The Royal Academy, London and Scaramouche, New York.

Helene Kazan
‘A Domestic Image of Preemption – Film Montage’ by Helene Kazan sets, the ordinary image of the domestic space against a complex framework of preemption. The montage extracts aspects from a series of films to bring together as a whole, a view of the everyday architecture and activities that fill our lives. Showing in juxtaposition the architecture of the home as it transforms through a set of overarching conditions, from a space of shelter to a space of potent threat.

The montage will comprise of inter spliced clips of:
Chantal Akerman’s portrayal of domestic life in ‘Jeanne Dielman 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles.’
‘Protect and Survive’ a public information series on Civil Defence produced by the British government during the late 1970s to inform British citizens on how to protect themselves during a nuclear attack.
Kazan’s short films, which use a unique methodology, taking preemptive image production and generating from it stop motion films recreating spaces and events, to include ‘Living the Edge’ 2013.

Helene Kazan is a multidisciplinary artist who has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. Across her practice, she uses research and archival material to generate moving image and mixed media sculptural installations. She is currently completing a Masters at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths, University of London.

www.helenekazan.co.uk

www.batrounartspace.org

PAVILION presents AUDITORIUM | LIMBO | Mar 2013

Pavilion

Sophie Yetton + Gabriel Birch
films by Mary Hurrell, Helene Kazan, Linda Persson, Thomas Lock, Mirza&Butler and Richard Whitby
2- 10 March 2013

Open Fri-Sun, 12 – 5 pm
Private View: 1 March,  6-9pm

Pavilion is Sophie Yetton & Gabriel Birch. Pavilion’s work re-frames the exhibition space by investigating the possible duality of sculptural object and gallery furniture. They create performative installations which become vehicles for the interaction between audiences and other artists’ work.

Auditorium is an exhibition that explores the idea of screen as object through a single sculpture which poses as a projection room for artists’ films. It challenges the viewer to occupy the structure and invites the audience as a whole to determine the object’s functional and aesthetic potential.

Built from timber and thin sheet material, the scale is both formally sculptural and also suggestive of lightweight architecture. The timber structure is intricate but anarchic, providing an elaborate footing for a shell-like platform. The screen stretches out across the timber, shattering and unfolding into a broken ground to offer a form of seating from which to view the films.

Auditorium presents films by:
Mary Hurrell works across performance, film and sculpture to explore choreography and composition of body, space and object. Her work investigates forms of non-verbal language, and relationships between physical and psychological experience.

Hurrell has made a new work for Auditorium, Tilt your head toward me (Remixed performance works), 2012, which incorporates recent performance footage, creating an altered interpretation of earlier works. This piece looks at the translation of performance to film and uses this dislocation to form a new composition.

Helene Kazan is a London-based multidisciplinary artist, who uses research and archival material to generate moving image and mixed media installations. Currently she is an MA student at the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths University, London.

Living on the Edge (2013) is a stop-frame animation entirely generated from a single archive photograph of a flooded house in London in 1989. It recreates the event and its effects on the architecture of the home, as a way of punctuating a turning point in cultural and political attitudes towards the environment, re-placing it within a contemporary context and a continued mobilised state of fear.

View film: Living the Edge

Thomas Lock is a London-based artist working with video and sound. Earlier works explore derelict buildings through a disembodied camera creating uncanny immersive video and sound environments. Lock's more recent works are low-fi video collages that break down the materiality of video and sound.

Body Dysfunctional (2009) explores the architectural space of an abandoned children's hospital in East London. The camera slowly moves throughout the building recreating the experience of a disembodied viewer.

Karen Mirza & Brad Butler have been making films for over 15 years including works that interrogate the illusionistic space of cinema, the recording and representation of space and the politics of the viewing space of film itself.

In The Space Between the film image is constantly fluctuating between object representation and surface abstraction. Repetition does not bring clarity nor is it meant to. No attempt is made to deny either the subjectivity of film or its representational mode; rather the viewer works through and against the film with the filmmakers; so to speak.

Linda Persson's practice stems from a metaphysical ground for artistic unfolding, exploring transformative spatiality through individual and collaborative engagements that influence aesthetics and discourse equally. Through the structure and syntax of filmic representation, the work aims to unsettle perception by activating physical bodies.

Encounter (2007): A lone figure performs undefined movements on a buoyant platform in a lake which was formerly industrial wasteland. His embodiment challenges the set perimeters navigated by historical events.

Richard Whitby sees video as a container in which different materials and tropes can be brought into proximity. These materials can come from historical research, documentary-style shoots and/or improvised performances with handmade props.

Palatul (2011) includes footage of inner-city stray dogs, and a narrated fable of an architect building a palace for a communist dictator.