Johanna DOMKE: Cuers | Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin/Madrid |

Johanna DOMKE

Cuers

Johanna Domke’s film Cuers is inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Trial and the filmic universe of Orson Welles. The audience is taken on a fleeting and meandering journey through different sites in public space, where people are exposed to long waiting. The individual is presented as a singular being, confronting structures of public space. The particular situations are represented in an inspirational manner shifting in and out of each other. Time and space is dissolved in kaleidoscopic pictures, which emphasizes how we physically as well as mentally have trouble adjusting to our anonymous environment. “ Cuers” seeks to create a mental space through abstraction and subversion of the familiar.

After studying art at the Muthesius Academy for Art and Design in Kiel, Johanna Domke went on to graduate studies at the Royal Art Academy in Copenhagen and the Malmö Art Academy, Sweden, where she got her MA in 2004. In 2003 she received the ZKM International Media Art Award, Audience Prize, for her single-channel piece “Let the wind blow” and the Brockmann Prize from the Stadtgalerie Kiel. 2004 she got the Edstranska Grant for Graduating Students. Since then Domke has broadly exhibited her work in renowned art institutions, such as Casino Luxembourg, Göteborg Konstmuseum, KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki and international film festivals such as Film festival Oberhausen, Locarno Film Festival, Videonale at the Bonner Kunstmuseum and VIPER, Basel.

Artist statement

Johanna Domke’s artistic practice derives from close observation of urban structures and the psychology of public space. Her films revolve around our experience of reality and the aesthetic tension between the private and the public. She is preoccupied with the authentic situation but alternates between documenting and staging such situations. The subsequent technical processing of the material reduces these situations to isolated phenomena that move between the border of documentary and non-narrative fiction.

Other text

On Authenticity and Representation in Johanna Domke`s Films  
by Jesper N. Jørgensen, 02/2008
Art is fiction, one might say, but isn’t reality just as fictitious? Johanna Domke’s artistic practice revolves around our experience of reality. She is preoccupied with the authentic situation or act that represents a recognisable reality. Domke alternates between documenting situations in her immediate surroundings and staging such situations. The subsequent technical processing of the material reduces these situations to isolated phenomena.
In the work Crossing Fields from 2007 Domke re-stages, for example, a situation experienced in a bookstore in Beijing, China and, as in most of her other film work, the sequence loops in continual repetition. Domke manipulates her material in order to disclose a certain surreal quality of the experience or to emphasise an absurdity of everyday life. The endless repetition of the same act suggests a sense of being trapped without possibility of escaping. Each situation appears to be completely wrapped up in itself, and this makes the viewer doubt its credibility as reality and creates a certain gloominess in the works. Recognisable scenes assume strange new forms and seem to express something that the viewer doesn’t quite know how to relate to. 
Likewise - irrespectively of whether the scenes are staged or filmed with a hidden camera in a public place - the artist uses the voyeuristic gaze of the camera for an intimidating transgression of the private sphere. The persons in Domke’s films, whether sleeping in an airport, as in Sleepers, reading in a bookstore, as in Crossing Fields, or waiting on the platform in a train station, as in Unbreakable Space, are all placed in more or less private situations. Through the handling of the camera and the physical installation of the works, one identifies with and yet also brutally invades these situations. An ambiance of intimacy is conveyed by the use of the hidden camera, close-ups and slow motion. The subjectivity undermines the element of objective documentation in the execution as well as the experience of the work. In this way, fiction sneaks into Domke’s works, and, once the viewer has ceased smiling at the entertaining absurdity of the situation, uneasiness takes over. Domke is not concerned, however, with a classic ‘fiction/non-fiction’ relation or with a theoretical discussion of various concepts of reality: The opposition between fiction and reality in itself does not interest her and, in consequently, neither does an investigation into the conventions of cinematic documentarism and the presentation of stories from real life. Johanna Domke is interested in the psychological space and in the question of how we are influenced, as individuals, by the society that surrounds us. 

To a great extent, reality is a construction based on the currently prevailing ideology in society. Naturally, there is no such thing as an objective reality, since this is a product of a subjective idea formed on the basis of the preconditions of the individual person in terms of education, intellectual environment and personal preferences. This illusion of reality, however, is a prerequisite of the construction of society: The collective consensus on how to view and understand society is an expression of an idealist mind-set that rests on the existence of a definite origin of and goal for our relations to the surroundings. This ideological construction is an “imaginary representation of our real conditions of existence” (Louis Althusser: ”Le courant souterrain du matérialisme de la rencontre”, Paris, 1982). By this representation we seek to establish a progressive, linear evolution and to create a general narrative that can structure the chaotic coincidences that constitute the surrounding society. Our experience of reality, then, is a product of the significance we bestow upon it, that is to say, a product of the ideology that underlies our perception of reality. The places and situations Domke chooses to film, exposes the conflict between private and public. They emphasise how the individual person’s possibilities in public places are controlled by the overriding systems that organise the structure of society. As mentioned, these are ideologically conditioned and confine the individual to formalised circuits of behaviour. The distinct choice of public and more or less anonymous surroundings as locations shifts the focus from the specific place and the original situation to a psychological condition. 
In her latest work from 2008, Domke has staged a more complex composition and structure that takes this whole issue one step further. Whereas previous works have been concentrated on a clear view of a single situation, this new film comprises a number of situations that unfold within a more comprehensive, labyrinthine scenography where the viewer soon looses all sense of direction. This work is inspired by the world of Franz Kafka and the movies of Orson Welles and, like the earlier work, it seeks to create a mental space through abstraction and subversion of the familiar. Thus, Johanna Domke’s art is also about representation and the formation of meaning. She makes us see that we read meaning into the works, and into our surroundings, on the basis of our ideological background – as opposed to reading the meaning in the works and in our surroundings on the basis of a metaphorical system.

List of exhibition, filmography...

JOHANNA DOMKE, *1978


education

	2002 - 2006 Royal Danish Art Academy, Copenhagen, DK
 	2002 - 2004 Malmö Art Academy, SE
2000 - 2002 Royal Danish Art Academy, Copenhagen, DK
1998 - 2000 Muthesius Academy of Art and Design, Kiel, D
1997   Goethe Schule, Buenos Aires, AR

solo exhibitions
	
2008 >Marginal Moments< Art Agents Gallery, Hamburg, DE
         >Unbreakable space< Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen
2007 >Sequent silence< Olivier Houg, Bureau pour l`art contemporain, Lyon, FR
2005 >You´ll miss what´s gonna stay”< Art Agents Gallery, Hamburg
2004 >You´ll miss what´s gonna stay” <Graduationshow, Peep Gallery, Malmö
2003 >Still in motion< Galleri Gustaf Gimm, Copenhagen, DK
2002 >Caspar David Friedrich Preis< Pommersches Landesmuseum,Greifswald, D

selected groupshows

2008  	>ENTER< Kunsthallen Brandts, Odense, DK
	>Audio/Video< Gimsinghoved Kunst og Kulturcenter, Struer, DK 
	>Grænseland < Flensburg Kunstverein, Flensburg, DE
>Lofoten Film Festival< Svolvær, NO
>Rencontres Internationales< National Museum Reina Sofia, Madrid, ES
>Two Faced< Galleri Rebecca Kormind, København, DK
>Young Identities - Global Youth / EMAF< Kunsthalle Dominikanerkirche, Osnabrück
	>Nightclub Notes< DUNK Udstillingssted, København, DK
2007 	>Ghosts in the Machine< 516 ARTS, Santa Fe, US, Sep. 2007 
>Subtle whispering< Total Museum of Contemporary Art, Seoul, Korea Oct. 2007
>I Need No Map< Anna Akhmatova Museum & D137 Gallery, St.Petersburg, Russia 
>Nordskulptur:licht< Kunstverein Neumünster, Neumünster, D 
>Filmfestival Oberhausen< Oberhausen, D
>Videolandschaft< Galerie Maerz, Linz, AU 
>Bildschirmauge oder das neue Bild< Forum d`art contemporain, Casino Luxembourg, Luxembourg 
2006 	>40 Jahre Videokunst – was fehlt?< Deutsche Künstlerbund, Berlin, D
>Air Play< Open Air Videofestival, Copenhagen
>Locarno Filmfestival<, Locarno, CH
>DK – Berlin< Galleri MøllerWitt, DK
>Kvindens rum< Galleri Møller Witt, Arhus, DK
>Pulsar< encuentro internacional multimedia, Caracas, Venezuela
>Freeze< Kunstverein Rügen, Putbus, D 
>Momentum< Moss, Norway 
>Exit< Kunstforeningen Gammel Strand, Copenhagen, DK
>Internationales Videoforum Hamburg / Stile der Stadt< Hamburg, D
>Off Soledad, 5th Berlin Biennale< BRIX Club, Berlin
2005      >Rencontres Internationales< Paris/Berlin, Paris, FR
>Art Cologne< New Talents, Cologne, D (catalogue)
>Time Bandits< Råhuset, Copenhagen, DK (catalogue)
>First we take museums - Urban Art Now < KIASMA Museum of Contemprorary Art, Helsinki, FI
>10 Years Anniversary< Rooseum, Malmö, SE
            >Værk 05< Kulurfabrik Knabstrup, Knabstrup, DK (catalogue)
            >New Swedish Photography< Hasselblad Center, Göteborg Konstmuseum, Göteborg, SE (catalogue)
            >Purgatory< the living Art Museum, Reykjavik, IS (catalogue)
            >K-raa-k< Film festival, Gent, B
            >Videonale< Bonner Kunstmuseum, Bonn, D (catalogue)
               2004        >Video 2004< Bergen Kunsthall, Bergen, N
            >Kontrollierter Code konstruiert Kognition< Kornhausforum Bern,  SZ
            >Artronica< Goethe Institut Inter Nationes, IMKP, Bogotá, CO
            >Purgatory< Signal in the Heavens,  Gallery Boreas,  New York, USA (catalogue)
            >I need no map< Overgaden Institut for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen (catalogue) 
            >Repetition< Malmö Konsthall, Malmö, SE 
            >Radar< Festival for video and elektronic art, Vega, Copenhagen (catalogue)
            >Cinematek< Lazy Mary Filmfestival, Utrecht, NL (catalogue)
            >Blitz Ballroom< Galeri Gimm Eis, Copenhagen, DK
               2003        >Bandits-Mages< 8 ème festival des arts multi-média, Bourges, FR 
            >VIPER< Internationales Festival für Film Video und neue Medien, Basel, CH
            >Constructed Life< Medialounge, ZKM, Karlsruhe, D (catalogue)
            >Gottfried Brockmann Preis< Stadtgalerie Kiel, D (catalogue)
            >Noass< 3rd international Video Art Festival, Riga, LIT
            >Piece of Mind< ÖSKG Kunstnargille, Baskemölla, SE
            >Larger than Life< European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, D (catalogue)
            >Fabricated Evidence< Temporary Fine Arts, Berlin
            >4. OG< Alsterhaus, Hamburg (catalogue)
             2002          > frei machen< Palais für aktuelle Kunst, Glückstadt (catalogue)
            >still in motion< Galleri Gustaf Gimm, Copenhagen, DK (solo)
            >Artgenda 2002<, Bienale for ung kunst, Hamburg
            >Bits & pieces< Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, DK
            >CopKop<, Galleri Asbæk, Copenhagen
            >Prima Kunst<, Prima Kunst, Kiel, D
            >Touching from a distance< Germinations 13, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, IRE (catalogue)



 	 Awards and Scholarships

		
	2008 Danish Art Council national Production Grant for video work “Marginal Moments” 
         Danish Art Council working grant
         Danish Art Council national Production Grant for video work "Cuers" + catalogue production
	2007 Residency Sølyst, Vestsjæland, DK 
	         Danish Art Council international travel grant 
                         Danish Art Council international production grant for video work "Sleepers" 
	         Danish Art Council international production grant for video work "Crossing Fields" 
	         Danish Art Council international production grant for video work "Unbreakable Space"
	2006 Award of the International Video Art Forum, Hamburg, D
	2005 nomination for the Hasselblad Postgraduate Grant, Göteborg, SE	
	2004 Edstranska Stiftelsen, Grant for graduating students, Malmö, 
	         Assistant Grant, Swedish Art Council, Stockholm, SE
	2003 ZKM International Media Art Award 2003, Audience Award, Karlsruhe, 
	         Gottfried Brockmann Preis, Cultur Award of Landeshauptstadt Kiel , Stadtgalerie Kiel, D	
	2002 Caspar David Friedrich Preis, Caspar David Friedrich Gesellschaft, Greifswald, D
      Frk. Inger Natja Borchsenius m. fl.s Legat
      nomination for the ZKM International Media Art Award 2002, Karlsruhe,50 best, D
      Germinations 13, European Programme for Young Artists, Germination Europe, NL
      Residency at Sirius Art Center, Cobh, Irland



  Videologie:

  2008   ”Marginal Moments” HD DVC PRO on DVD, single channel video
             ”Cuers” HD DVC PRO on DVD, single channel video
  2007   ”Unbreakable Space” HD DVC PRO on DVD, 3 screen channel video 
”Crossing fields” HD DVC PRO on DVD, single channel video 
2006   ”Sleepers” DVCAM on DVD, single channel video
2005   ”A sunset takes 7 minutes” 16 mm on DVD, singel channel video 
2004   “You´ll miss what´s gonna stay I“ 16 mm on DVD, multi-channel video installation
           “You´ll miss what´s gonna stay II“ 16 mm on DVD, single-channel video installation
2003   “Let the wind blow“ digital single shots on DVD, single-channel video installation
2002  “Still in motion“ DVCAM on DVD, multi-channel video installation 
          “Too near yet so far“ DVCAM on DVD, multi-channel video installation 
          “Realplayer“ DVCAM on DVD, multi-channel video installation

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