Chronological timeline from September 25th to November 5th.
Duration: 14’55”
Magazine
download via this link.
(Dutch only)
Alphabetical overview of the transformations that took place.
Aluminum Construction System
- The aluminum construction system, originally part of the ‘Pick and Change Project’, has been given a new function within the concept of the transformation studio. Depending on the need, tables, pedestals, or other structures are created or modified.
The Great Escape of Saint Sebastian
- At the start of the exhibition, the cage, along with polyester molds, formed a unique temporary artwork.
- The small yellow mold was filled on-site on the pedestal, becoming a sculpture in its own right.
- The mold was removed, and the cage was placed over the sculpture, representing the shape of the original artwork.
- During the finissage, the escape occurred. The artwork melted due to heat, transforming from a sculpture into another form, enabling it to slip through the bars of the cage.
The Great Escape of Saint Sebastian
Colored Ribbons
- Colored ribbons, created with canvas and oil paint, formed a fault line, a tangle of fault lines, a star fracture, and a lattice of lines.
Local Solutions with Intergalactic Dimensions
- This artwork was exhibited for the first time. Visitors enthusiastically applied plasters to the sculpture, partially altering its color. No significant transformation in shape has occurred yet. The process of transformation may continue elsewhere. The floor was scattered with the plaster wrappers.
Local Solutions with Intergalactic Dimensions
Infinite Ice Cube Sculpture No. 2
- This artwork was also exhibited for the first time. The sculpture’s construction began with ice cubes shaped like a single or double infinity symbol. Then, the shaping continued with glowing metal, heated using an induction tool.
- A polyester commander figure was placed in the sculpture and then encased in ice.
- During the finissage, the ice sculpture was presented alongside the 3D animation ‘The Ice-Cold Man’. The goal was to melt the ice sculpture completely, allowing the commander to figuratively “thaw.” A contrast was created between the physical melting of the ice and the virtual ice in the animation
Infinite Ice Cube Sculpture No. 2
Polyester Forms
The polyester forms—commander, soldier, victim, knife, fork, heart, left wing, right wing, atomic bomb, and pistol—were added in relation to other artworks and/or as part of the exhibition.
- Commander, soldier, and victim were arranged on a table with chairs around it.
- These same molds were set up in an aluminum construction alongside the 3D animation ‘The Bending Monument.’
- The stainless-steel cage of ‘The Great Escape of Saint Sebastian’ was combined with a heart, knife, fork, and wings to form a new temporary artwork.
- Atomic bomb, pistol, commander, soldier, and victim were displayed on the canvas “MT.4 Black” in a battlefield simulation.
- Commander was frozen in ‘Infinite Ice Cube Sculpture No. 2′, gaining an extra thick cold layer for later thawing.
- Heart and knife were combined into a new temporary artwork with “Google Drawing No. 59.”
- Soldier, victim, atomic bomb, and pistol were arranged in a chaotic manner near the canvas ‘MT. 4 Left or Right’.
Polyester forms from the ‘Pick and Change project’
Google Drawings
Sfincterman No.0.0
- Sphincter Man was presented along with a video work and a writing desk. Visitors wrote words they associated with Sphincter Man on canvas ribbons and attached them to the statue, changing its form.
- Subsequently, Sphincter Man evolved into a figure that no longer speaks in black-and-white terms but in many colors and with more nuance. Transparent tubes filled with colored water were used to achieve this.
- The written ribbons were reused on the Virus Wall.
Melting Targets No. 3
- At the start of the exhibition, the paintings were placed randomly in the space and then removed from their frames.
- Canvases numbered 3.1, 3.3, 3.6, 3.7, and 3.8 were preserved and presented first on the floor, then hanging on a wall. This ensemble later transformed into a bird.
- Canvases numbered 3.2, 3.4, and 3.5 were reused in the project “Melting Targets No. 4.”
Melting Targets No. 4
The new installation was exhibited and activated for the first time. New works matching the exhibition’s theme were created during the event, including:
An overview:
- ‘MT4 Black’: Canvas 3.5 was further dripped with black
- ‘MT4 Pattern for Brown Shirts’: Canvas 3.2 gained brown tones combined with a shirt sewing pattern.
- ‘MT4 GLEEUW’: Started with a canvas inspired by the flag of the Black Flemish Lion, featuring a humorous wordplay combining ‘lion’ (leeuw) and ‘yawn’ (geeuw).
- ‘MT4 Goal’: Started with a canvas playing on the words ‘goal’ (doel) and ‘goal’, combined with lines of a football field and inspired by the works of Roger Raveel.
- ‘MT4 The Granary’: Started with a canvas themed around the Ukrainian flag. The drips flow not downward but upward.
- ‘MT4 White Flag’: Started with a canvas based on the Russian flag.
- ‘MT4 MAGA’: Started with a canvas based on the American flag and the letters MAGA.
- ‘MT4 Antonyms’: ‘Melting Target No. 3.4′ was given a new white layer. I asked visitors a personal question: “Have you experienced a transformative moment in your life? Could you describe it using two opposite words?” Visitors then wrote the words themselves on the canvas, placed directly opposite each other in a circle.
- ‘MT4 Left Right’: Two walls were placed at the entrance of the exhibition space, with this canvas hung on them. This forced visitors to make a choice: left or right. Later, the canvas was rolled up and re-exhibited in a small negative space.
Banner of Paintings
- The banner of paintings, initially created for the ‘Sphincter Man for President’ exhibition at C-TAKT in Pelt, was set up and then deconstructed into individual paintings. Some of these moved to the small negative space.
Traces of Transformations
- A canvas was placed beneath the ‘Melting Targets No. 4′ installation. Splashes, drips, and debris left behind traces of transformation. This canvas will be preserved for use in future installations or artworks.
- Photographs captured other traces of transformation that have permanently disappeared, such as the adhesive bandage pieces from the artwork ‘Local Solutions with Intergalactic Dimensions’ and the grease with glass granules from ‘The Great Escape of Saint Sebastian’.
Transformative Manifest
- The ‘Transformative Manifest’. which is also featured in the exhibition magazine, was transferred onto canvas. It was rearranged into a different setup twice.
Sleep in with the Sleepers
- The artwork, without an air mattress, followed a fracture line created with colored ribbons and came to a stop against a wall, where the fracture line transformed into a star-shaped fracture on the surface.
- This movement was incorporated into a temporary video piece titled ‘Accelerating Nightmare Along a Fracture Line’ and was projected onto a wall.
- The star-shaped fracture then transformed into lines resembling bars.
- Finally, the artwork was given a permanent place, and the air mattress was added.
Window Shutters
- At the start of the project, the empty space was photographed with open window shutters. These were then closed, enabling the transition from a dark, closed atmosphere to a bright and open space.
Movable Walls
- The walls were relocated twice.
- During the first relocation, they were placed at the entrance, forcing visitors to choose whether to go left or right, leading them into an open, dark space.
- In the second relocation, the walls were positioned to create a smaller space dedicated to displaying artworks with a negative message. Around this space, efforts were made to place artworks with a more positive appearance or to transform them into a more positive theme.
- Additional works added to the negative space, which had not been mentioned previously, include the canvas ‘Cutting History’ from the series ‘Multitude of Information Series’, a piece of canvas with ‘scary smileys’ on it, and ‘Google Drawings’ numbered 16, 67, 57, and 34.
Videos and 3D animatios
- The video artwork ‘Dueling Handguns’ was projected in a corner and later moved to the small negative space.
- The artworks ‘Scanning Cows for the Next Revolution’ and ‘The Luxury of Replaceable Goalkeepers’ from the series ‘Moving Images on Canvas’ were presented as originally designed, with projections onto painted canvases. Subsequently, the two paintings were hung together in a corner of the small negative space.
- The 3D animation ‘Driving Backwards Landscape’ was initially displayed on a flatscreen, with two yellow ribbons extending the lines of the highway. Later, the animation was projected in the small negative space.
- In the video work from the project ‘Unidentified Arcade’, two previously negative fragments were chosen: one scene on a playground with bullying children featuring the forms of a commander, soldier, and victim, and another featuring a “heartbreaking boy” with a heart-shaped figure.
- ‘Hate Radio’, a 3D animation, transformed during the exhibition from a negative and dark tone—where the radio repeatedly chanted “I hate it”—into a positive ambiance with softer and lighter colors, accompanied by a fragment of Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free’.
- The 3D animation ‘The Ice-Cold Man’ was presented during the finissage alongside the ‘Infinite Ice Cube Sculpture No. 2′, which incorporated the polyester figure of the commander.
- The video work accompanying the installation ‘Sfincterman No. 0.0′ evolved into the 3D animation ‘Atlas in Bubble Wrap’.
- The video work from the project ‘The Modern Caveman’ was presented in the small negative space, along with three paintings from the same project that had previously been removed from the banner in the exhibition.
Virus Wall
- Described ribbons from ‘Sfincterman’ transformed into virus-like shapes and were nailed to a wall. Three Google Drawings—12, 75, and 58—were exhibited here, alongside a more positive version of the 3D animation ‘Hate Radio’: which featured Nina Simone’s ‘I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free’.
