Remix

[‘riːmɪks]installations and objects

Nicoll Ullrich

I am interested in creating a frozen moment in time, a final point in which the formal and material aspects in my work have to come together. The interdependencies between combined and stacked objects and multilayered surfaces are the result of my artistic analysis with the influence of coincidences and calculations, which are the subjects of my work.

The composition of different fragments in my work is influenced by modern, fast-pace communication and the lightness of a moment, what arises is a constantly changing synthesis, which manifests as a material outcome. Thus my temporary installations in public spaces or in an exhibition space suggest a debate between process and product. The focus is on the material; it’s texture and character in addition to its inherent social connotations.

[‘ri:miks] is a series of works which engage with the appropriation and reinterpretation of artistic working processes which I have been developing since 2008. Studios or workshops are places where art is generated but not usually exhibited. In [‘ri:miks] I reconstruct artists‘ studios from photographs that exist in the public realm. While doing so, I interpret and abstract the objects and materials, rearranging them. Specific elements taken from the photographs are combined with abstracted elements and materials and transformed into a site-related installation, which is created for the exhibition space. In another step, the process of remixing is taken even further in the deconstruction of the compiled group of materials. In an almost ceremonial act using coincidence I violently make the adapted studio situation collapse and thus intentionally deconstruct the previously comprised arrangement. In a last interpreting step I arrange the collapsed materials once more. This exemplary outcome of the end product is supposed to represent a fluid, individual collusion of materials. With [‘ri:miks] I question where and at which point in time and space art is generated and how it is established. It is my opinion that no object can be used to represent another. No material can be reduced to another;

it evades each and every mediating, substituting role. It therefore continually remains fragmentary, changeable, and authentic only in relation to the context.

The methods used by American Abstract Expressionists are relevant to the underlying idea for [‘ri:miks], as they reproduce objects of daily life, waste and photographs.The mix of different media and the partially satirical precision in the reproductions are elements that are also the basis of my process of abstraction. In some of the works in the [‘ri:miks] series, I take up on the playful irony of the American pioneers and develop a new mix of the art historical canon influenced by diverse contemporary media.

On the outside, the form and texture of my work are based on the clear minimalist language of Russian Constructivism. I combine strict non-representation with the previously mentioned process of abstraction. Conceptually, to me, this means that the liberal use of existing cultural/social fragments in the process of remixing besides non-representation also liberates the index to the source, the actual subject. The conscious use of found materials, their adaptation, rearrangement and combination with new elements from an inexhaustible archive is related to the process of remixing in pop culture: “Everything can become Anything and each combination is only a temporary stabilization, until it is deconstructed as raw material for something completely different.” (Felix Stalder, „Neun Thesen zur Remix-Kultur“, S. 17).

I agree with this point of view that all adaptation potentially can mean improvement and under close examination of the original, cultural codes can be solved and extended. Therefore [‘ri:miks] is a contribution to the artistic discourse around the definition of art, authenticity and authorship.

[‘riːmɪks] - C. OLDENBURG2013 | 3,40x2,50x2,00m | different materials

[fraˈɡmɛnt] - C. Oldenburg/blue 2014 | 0,70x0,50x0,45 m | blue tire, metal

R. MOTHERWELL2013 | 1,40x0,40m | different materials

Fantômas # 1/132013 | max. 2x1,60x1,50m | metal, wood, folie, corde

Fantômas # 92012 | 2,40x2,00x0,30m | wood, bar clamp

Fantômas # 3/112011 | max. 3x2x1m | wood, carpet, metal, bar clamp

L. FOWLER2011 | max. 2,00x1,50x1,00m | different materials

Fantómas # 3/112011 | max. 3x2x1m | wood, metal, bar clamp, cotton

THE CURATORS2010 | max. 1,70x1,90x0,90m | different materials

Fantomas # 12010 | max. 4,50x3,40x2,50m | different materials

Tal R2009 | max. 2,50x1,00x1,10m | cotton, metal, folie

Fantomas # 72009 | max. 5x3,30x4m | wood, metal, glas, bar clamp, carpet

Y. OYAMA2009 | max. 1,50x1,10x0,60m | different materials

M. HOLDING2008 | 2,5x3,7x0,50m | different materials