»There is a perspectivity and partiality of knowledge. [...] One has to move away from a universal language or a central-perspective standpoint, towards a web of standpoints, which contains different modes of translation.« (from Donna Haraway, The Reinvention of Nature, 1995, pg. 95)
 

 

For the 4-Channel Videoprojection fieldwork 1 from the work On Choosing an Appropriate Distance, the artist accompanied a group of primatologists and ethnologists on a research trip to Indonesia. Through observing the observers, the researchers themselves became the object of investigation, one which can be used to pose the question to what extent a complex research process in the field can be made visible using artistic means. The main thesis of the work is that a new form of perception arises in the cinematic reproduction of an observed situation which makes use of a synchronized, simultaneous portrayal of various perspectives on the same event, a new form which dissolves the hierarchical relationship between the observer and the observed.

 

The artistic work On Choosing an Appropriate Distance deals with the relationships of proximity and distance that exist among behavioral researchers working in the field of primatology. The work aims to place the usually invisible observer (the researcher) as well as the observer of the observed (the artist) at the center of attention, through the investigation and appropriation of scientific methods, such as that used to observe modes of behavior in the wild (nature, jungle), as well as through research into the personal archives of primatologists. The project revolves around an extended utilization and reinterpretation of scientific data in an artistic context, one in which the focus lies on the portrayal of the act of researching as a highly subjective process. At the same time, the individual processes of perception in the field are made accessible through a cinematic approach employing multiple perspectives. In the scope of an expansive, three-dimensional multimedia installation for an exhibition space,  the various text-based, auditory and visual perspectives of the corresponding character will be placed together with the intention of enabling visitors to experience a new form of perception of research work.

 

  

Emanuel Mathias
Artist, associated project partner
The Researchers' Affects 

Adress: Spinnereistraße 7, PF 220, 04179, Leipzig
phone: 034192712577

E-Mail: info@emanuelmathias.com
Webiste: www.emanuelmathias.com

 

Publications: 

Art Laboratorium - Tagungsband, Transkript Verlag Bielefeld, 2015 (Beteiligung)

C/O Berlin Talents 32: Emanuel Mathias/Sabine Weier: Kunst, Freiheit und Lebensfreude, Hrsg.  C/O Berlin, Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg, April 2015

Bildarchive 22, Emanuel Mathias, Herausgeber: spinnerei archiv massiv, Leipzig, 2014

KINO und der kinematografische Blick: Friedemann Hahn, Omer Fast, Romeo Grünfelder, Emanuel Mathias, Jana Müller, Georg Parthen, Martina Sauter, John Stezaker, Clemens von Wedemeyer und Ming Wong, Herausgeber: Axel Lapp, Kunsthalle Memmingen, 2013

Nebahats Schwestern: Marion Ermer Preis 2011, The Green Box Verlag Berlin, 2011