Demo of Show www.madeleinealtmann.com Audio by Charlie Nieland VOJAĜANTO - TRAVELER Video Art by Madeleine Altmann LAWRENCE fanun GALLERY, Oranienburger Str. 69 10117 Berlin, Mitte. Open Daily from 10 AM As we move through time and space, we become travelers searching and reframing ways to self identify. Humans adopt labels which define them and those around them. When labels are stripped of meaning then figures no longer belong to a certain race, gender, class or cultural identity. Using 40 monitors in 4 rooms VOJAĜANTO showcases estranged perspectives of moving people. 10 monitors on the ground floor show humans stripped of identity. Their movement across time and space become pictorial patterns with multiple images. The repetitive human shapes hypnotically draws in the viewer while their facelessness feels removed and alienating. Almost like a memory or a vision, the subjects are familiar without having a clear Identity. This perspective of people is completely reversed in the main gallery on the second floor with an absence of human form. We see only traces of people having already moved through that space. Looking like an old ethnographic film, a video searches the frozen river for tracks in the snow as remnants of human movement. Photographs of tracks on the same frozen river become aestheticized symbols of human activity. Isolated in a smaller room, 27 monitors showcase waves crashing on a beach, a view witnessed by travelers throughout the ages. The repetition on the monitors matches the rhythm of the waves and acts as a hypnotic visual mantra. Altmann may have come to terms with the issues of identity in the very last room. We finally see the recognizable figure of the artist. She is standing in a timeless idyllic setting, that resonates a persistent stillness but reflects a constant change. Many of the works take sculptural forms in collaboration with her German engineer husband Andreas Uthoff. Various technologies like pro-grade media players, embedded raspberry pi computers, 4k or HD displays, obsolete monitors and discarded computer screens from the e-waste pile are all imbued with timeless landscapes and ritualistic experiences.
