Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

The Offspring Resembles the Parent (2015) is a new film made for the 2015 Venice Biennale. Like Selander’s earlier works, it takes as its starting point a specific event or situation of crisis within society—in this case the current economic state and our increasingly crumbling faith in the monetary systems, with links to the European situation during World War I and the interwar years. A major part of the film’s imagery consists of Notgeld—emergency banknotes—often colourful and with a strong visual impact, printed on paper or fabric. Their obviously fictitious character—they represent gigantic figures— points to the imperceptible flows within today’s digital economies. Not unlike language, economic value is built on an agreement, a mutual understanding. The fictitious reality of finance only reveals its relation to the human, the body, to work and to nature in a situation of crisis in which the human conditions and connections to colonialism and warfare become clear.

Lina Selander is one of Sweden’s most innovative moving image artists. Her films and installations often focus on junctures in history where a system or physical place collapses and something new begins to emerge; the narrative of mechanical cinema giving way to that of digital video, or a political or economic system plummeting into a new one. Her works revolve around images as memories, imprints and representations. Selander’s process is similar to that of the scientist or poet. Each work constitutes a dense archive of facts and observations, occasionally in dialogue with other films, works of art or literature. The precise, rhythmic editing and use of sound in her films generate a unique temporality and strong internal pressure, and take intuitive leaps between associations and meanings. Selander’s work has been shown at Index, The Swedish Contemporary Art Foundation, Moderna Museet, VOX - centre de l’image contemporaine, Montréal and in international group shows, biennales and festivals, for example in the Venice Biennale 2015, The Kiev Biennale, Seoul Media Art Biennale 2014, Manifesta 9-European Biennal of Contemporary Art 2012, and the Bucharest Biennale 4, 2010. .... Oscar Mangione works with Lina Selander and has participated with her in several exhibitions. From 2006 to 2012 he edited and wrote for the magazine and art project Geist and took part in the following exhibitions, performances and projects: Överlämningen, Konsthall C, 2013; Suðurlandsvegur, The Reykjavík Arts Festival, 2012; The Spiral and the Square, Bonniers Konsthall, 2011/12; Geist in Therapy, The Studio, Moderna Museet, 2009; Role Critique, Iaspis at the Venice Biennale, 2009; Geist on Speed, Index, 2008.