Capture – New Works
RUDOLF BONVIE
May 7th – July 30th, 2004
capture: arrest, seizure; conquering, prey; comprehension, partial or full storage of screen as image (see: Screenshot)
Under the title “Captures,” Galerie Priska Pasquer exhibits work from Rudolf Bonvie from the series “Stock Market Works,” “Spam” and “Suicides.”
In the series “Stock Market Works” and “Spam,” the internet and electronic data analysis serve as the basis for image creation. The sources for the “Stock Market Work” are real-time graphics, charts and tables from the virtual world of the international stock market. Bonvie captures, mounts, and compresses the graphically represented course of internet pages into abstract pictures. At the same time, the date particulars in the picture titles indicate the connection to the material world. This reference becomes above all visible when international events, for example the begin of the war in Iraq, the assaults in Istanbul and Madrid or the capture of Sadam Hussein, affect the course of the stock market. Reduced to red and green color fields, the stock market developments become a mirror of real world events.
A further series from the internet is formed by Bonvie’s “Spam” works. In this work he layers the subject lines from spam e-mails he has received into text montages. Spam e-mails, unwanted advertising mailings sent daily by the millions, include in their headings all the promises meant to move modern man to purchase products. Advertised are potence-increasing products, happy partnerships, financial success and pornographic websites. Spams become hereby the mirror of fears, desires, and inventions of the western industrial society.
The phrase “Strike up for the dance” from Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue” forms the opening of the series “Suicide.” Words from famous suicides form typographic “line codes,” as we know them from the market. This impression is reinforced by the accompanying statistics, which could also be read as product codes. Life and the achievements of people appear to be electronically measured and assume the character of market products.
capture: arrest, seizure; conquering, prey; comprehension, partial or full storage of screen as image (see: Screenshot)
Under the title “Captures,” Galerie Priska Pasquer exhibits work from Rudolf Bonvie from the series “Stock Market Works,” “Spam” and “Suicides.”
In the series “Stock Market Works” and “Spam,” the internet and electronic data analysis serve as the basis for image creation. The sources for the “Stock Market Work” are real-time graphics, charts and tables from the virtual world of the international stock market. Bonvie captures, mounts, and compresses the graphically represented course of internet pages into abstract pictures. At the same time, the date particulars in the picture titles indicate the connection to the material world. This reference becomes above all visible when international events, for example the begin of the war in Iraq, the assaults in Istanbul and Madrid or the capture of Sadam Hussein, affect the course of the stock market. Reduced to red and green color fields, the stock market developments become a mirror of real world events.
A further series from the internet is formed by Bonvie’s “Spam” works. In this work he layers the subject lines from spam e-mails he has received into text montages. Spam e-mails, unwanted advertising mailings sent daily by the millions, include in their headings all the promises meant to move modern man to purchase products. Advertised are potence-increasing products, happy partnerships, financial success and pornographic websites. Spams become hereby the mirror of fears, desires, and inventions of the western industrial society.
The phrase “Strike up for the dance” from Paul Celan’s “Death Fugue” forms the opening of the series “Suicide.” Words from famous suicides form typographic “line codes,” as we know them from the market. This impression is reinforced by the accompanying statistics, which could also be read as product codes. Life and the achievements of people appear to be electronically measured and assume the character of market products.