DEEP DOWN, HIGH UP
This moveable video sculpture enables the spectator to see a world that is normally “out-of-sight.” Art curator and collector, Louis Corrigan calls it -"Terrascope." Spectators were invited to explore a water pump room that was situated directly underneath the piece in real-time. Two cameras captured the underground environment and displayed, in a Virtual Reality and stereoscopy-like setup on two LCD screens, a world that would normally be invisible. A white light rectangle illuminated parts of the room, flattening out perspective and playing with dimensions in such way that 3D and 2D shift and melt together seamlessly.
Shown @ Bucareli Act 2013, form march 9th to 14th
Technique:
Insitu VR Video Installation, dual channeled, with NTSC projection of a blue image underground, captured by two CCTV NTSC cameras. All sustained by soldered steel tubes and aluminium.
Dimensions:
Projection on two 7" LCD screens
Terrascope: 1m 50cms height, 65cms underground
Moving Angle: 45º
Edition:
depending on comissions
MACHTINSTRUMENT
"Machtinstrument" is a reactive CCTV installation that was commissioned in 2012 for a group show called “Feos, Sucios y Malos” (“The Ugly, The Dirty and The Bad”). Male artists “invaded” a large art space in Mexico City in a rather uncontrolled way. However, this installation works in most socially diverse places.
The installation consists of a box with a triangular opening in front, attached to the wall on about 1m 40cm height. When taking a look into the box the viewer can see an empiric 120º from above of the space where the installation is shown. However, diving into this single channeled VR experience the observer's eye is projected magnified on top of the box noticeable by everyone present. Similarities with the phallic and macho driven "eye on top of a pyramid" Illuminati-symbol are intentional and invite the watcher to critically play with one's own social position, the position of others, and a general reflection of the self and society.
Technique:
CCTV Installation including 2 Infrared Mini cameras,
a video projector (minimum 3500 Ansi Lumen) and
1 Mini LCD screen.
Edition:
depending on comissions
KONDITION I
"Kondition I" - as alluded to in its name- is a video sculpture that conditions its visitors: Only children, being smaller in size, can see the content of the ray cathode tube. An adult must kneel and look up in order to see the video loop displayed on the 7” TV screen, which hangs facing down. In fact, any content or movement on a TV screen attracts and even magnetizes viewers. Considering the difficulty in watching the content of this work and the physical effort it requires, a few subliminal messages interweaved into the video feed (i.e., water vortex being sucked up, defying gravity), address the unconscious mind quicker. Or, as a Mexican jargon states: "It's not harmful to watch TV. The harm is in what you are not doing while watching TV.”
Edition:
1 AP
"CORN FLAKE IN A FISH TANK" PART I
These two pieces - first shown at "Piel/Skin,” early in 2011- examines, through sensory-driven experiences how different events can be etched into one’s mind without an active decision.
"Sun burn" (2011) is a video that - after staring at it for enough time- starts to (temporarily) burn multilayered sun reflections on your retina.
"Exfolio" (2009) are the testosterone-saturated clothes I wore during my infra-world experience, hanging on top of three sidewalk fragments I picked up in front of the Superior Court in Mexico City.
Further specifications:
Technique
SUN BURN: circular video loop (NTSC) projected on water
Dimensions: variable, ø about 60 cm
Edition: not specified
Technique
EXFOLIO: hanged clothes (shirt, trousers), three sidewalk fragments
(concrete with white marble pieces).
Edition: 1/1
Shown @"Piel /Skin", Isabel la catolica #97, Mexico City
PROZESS
"Prozess I" is a sculptoric approach to a closed mechanical system which is established by this composition of 5 LCD screens, displaying dependencies of physical processes that we take for granted, but easily forget about.
The dependency shows how water from a little pond flows down on a wooden channel to a huge wheel of a mill that impulses a mechanism of a saw that is cutting a tree. The 3 dimensional, gravity obeying setup has a very casual appearance.
Further specifications:
5 LCD screens on recycled wooden shelves.
5 Video loops from DVD, 3min. 45sec. each.
1 loudspeaker with the sound of water.
Dimensions: 40 x 50 x 30 cms.110 V - 220 V
Edition: 1/1
Vergangene Gegenwart (Presente Imperfecto)
A Small Moment of the Past.
Six sockets, each with an LCD-Screen and a camera on top and arranged in a hexagon, facing inwards. The spectator, upon entering the circle can see himself – from behind. And try as you might, if you look into one of the screens, you will already have turned away.
Black Holes, in Einstein's theory of relativity, are reputed to bend light to the extent that being inside, you’d see yourself from behind. With Jens Kull, it’s not only light which is bent, but time as well. Because you only see yourself from behind, you literally see yourself already walking away.
“Vergangene Gegenwart” (2006) illustrates a moment from the past.
What happens at any given moment? How do we perceive what has happened?
And to what extent can we take influence on our past? This piece confronts us with two basic uncertainties of daily life: one, we can never see ourselves walking away. Two, we cannot change the past nor can we look into the past. And nevertheless, every moment that we experience in the present is past already.
The Spanish translation of the title (Presente Imperfecto) adds an interesting level to the German version: “presente imperfecto” means for one the present already gone by. But in addition, it takes on an imperfect present, a present which is never quite complete as any moment goes by instantly and becomes part of the past.
Jens Kull’s piece is thus an installation that demonstrates the futility of the present.
Further specifications:
Technique: Reactive video installation, 6 NTSC LCD screens on 6 wooden columns, with 6 CCTV cameras, 110 - 230V
Edition: 3 commercial copies 1 AP
Shown @: Gallery of Mexican Art, 2006
FEMACO 2007
Game Over, Emilia Cohen Arte Contemporaneo
NO PLACE TO HIDE, Skive Art Museum, Denmark
Untitled
With this light sculpture “Untitled" (2008), Jens Kull creates another opportunity to see our reality in just a slightly different way. Three cathode-ray tubes built into a light shaft, each one of them representing one of the RGB-scheme basic colours red, green and blue, changing their colour at different rates.
Life in the 21st century happens on screens. Be it computer desktops or large LCD panels, everything revolves around them. Kull takes the smallest constituent of such a screen, a pixel, and zooms into it. Every pixel on a screen has three different states, red, green, and blue. The light shaft installation thus represents one single pixel. The fact that it is placed in a light shaft through which in normal circumstances passes daylight highlights the replacing of natural light a.k.a. reality by artificial light a.k.a. life in a virtual world. With this stunning and multilayer piece of art, Kull proves his wit and his ability to look at the world from all angles. Again, he makes the spectator wonder for a moment and places a mirror in front of him. The result is an examination with the self and with the own role in contemporary reality.
Technique: 3 Ray Kathode Tubes (14") fed by synchronized NTSC videos.
Dimensions: 1m x 52cm x 1mEdition: 3 comercial copies and 1 AP, place specific.
Shown @:"Works of Art with a minimum of Steel", Gallery of Mexican Art, Mexico City, November 2008, curated by Edgar Orlaineta.
Why me, why here, why now, why not?
An Amazing Illustration of a Distorted Past by Jens Kull
Four screens of decreasing size in a row on a socket, each one of them fed by a camera. As you approach the piece, the camera on the first screen films you and feeds the images to the smallest screen in the back. Each camera, placed on top of a screen, in real-time, films what appears on the screen right behind and displays it on the screen. The result is an increasing distortion of the original image from screen to screen. So what you see on the first screen is yourself. But you won’t recognize yourself anymore.“Why me, why here, why now, why not?” uses the viewer as a central momentum. Only the viewer himself can see his own reflection, and he can never see the “real” image, as the last screen is out of sight, barred by the bigger screens in front. There is only the distorted perception of the self which is simulated by the result of the process of filming, projecting, zooming and projecting again. “Why now?” is certainly the central question of this work, when it comes to interpreting the title. Jens Kull’s work is very much driven by the experiment with time.
This piece works as a kind of time-machine as well: for when you see the result of the filtering by technology, you see what you have become. The spectator sees himself delayed. In this way, the piece depicts a moment from the past. This moment appears distorted. And the same happens when we remember. What is the self – and most of all: When is the self? What do we see, when we perceive ourselves? Is there any kind of objective reality?
Jens Kull’s most recent piece is humorous, highly philosophical and deeply disturbing at the same time. (MS)
Further specifications
Technique: 4 NTSC Ray Kathode Tubes on a wooden base, 4 Mini Video Cameras.
110-230 V
Dimensions: 2m 30cm large, 1m 40 cm high
Edition: 3 commercial and 1 AP
Shown @:ZONAMACO 2009, Mexico City.
Konfiglas
A video sculpture that "wishes" to be a Marmalade Jar (Konfiglas), but isn't nor has it ever been.
"Konfiglas" consists of four LCD screens that "simulate" reality.
This pseudo interactive work “confronts” the viewer with a video cube containing a holographic character placed on a wooden base. Walking around the sculpture, one can see the transparent glass from 4 different angles. The background shown on the screens IS the real backgrounds of the exhibit space. Where are the cameras? Where is the Konfiglas? The projected state of confusion is intentional...
Technique: LCD Screens on a wooden base, 4 Video NTSC feeds, colour, looped.
Edition: 3 comercial and 1 AP, in-situ.
Shown @:"Game Over", Emilia Cohen Contemporary Art, 2008
"Left Overs", Gallery of Mexican Art, Mexico City, August 2008,
Salon de otoño, "Traeger&Pinto", October 2008
La Madriguera, Mexico City, 2010
click here to watch a video including Konfiglas
Corner
Corner is a ludic video sculpture that “replaces” a real corner with LCD screen in order to achieve a "trompe l'oeil". This work varies and is adjustable to each space it is shown. (Requires preparation)
In some instances, Jens Kull animates some cockroaches passing in the replaced corner.
To date, "Corner" has been shown in 7 locations.
click here to watch Corner work
Rear Window
Dual Channeled Video Installation (InSitu)
The Mexican Museum for Antique Toys (MUJAM) is a special place. Sprawled in a space of over 30,000 sq/ft, it allows for the installation of almost any concept. Kull chose to create another kind of work that intends to “confuse”: Shifting time through a recorded HD video feed, juxtaposed with a "rear window" of a real-time video feed. What is used as a projection room for movie-evenings has a special condition: a door and a window which are filled up with bricks and a layer of concrete on top. These filled gaps were used by Jens Kull to project on. As if there would be no concrete the door is showing an HD video of what's on the other side, recorded one evening before the opening, the window gives a noisy real-time NTSC view of what is on the other side, a video feed that is created by a wireless camera signal.
@ ALTERNA - MUJAM, 2010
Further specifications:
Technique: Dual Projection HDV - (door) and wireless NTSC Projection (window) Mini VGA Camera
Shown @: ALTERNA, MUJAM 2010, Mexico City.
Credits and special thanks: Oscar Hernandez, projection technician
Serendipity, event managing and curating
Canon Mexico, material sponsoring
