10/06/2009-01/07/2009: Black Box. Benjamin Laurent Aman, Sébastien Maloberti, Marcel Türkowsky
The only conceivable way of unveiling a black box, is to play with it. -René Thom
STYX Project Space is pleased to announce »Black Box« with artists Benjamin Laurent Aman, Sébastien Maloberti and Marcel Türkowsky.
Benjamin Laurent Aman, who will be exhibiting in Berlin for the first time, has invited the two other artists to help him actualize the as-of-yet theoretical conception of the »Black Box«.
»Black Box« is the idea of externally perceptible behavioral patterns of a particular system, of a complex transitional space, or a non-space. In everyday language, the simplest model has advanced towards being a paradigm: through the reproducibility of sense perceptions, analogous to the black box of an airplane, an archive of memories and associations is constructed. It is a transistor, able to absorb and transform information. But, following La Mettrie s »L homme machine«, the theoretical conception of a black box can also be seen to extend beyond allegory to an all-encompassing surveillance of future, possible and so far impossible events. Attempts to define mental states solely through the input and output behaviour of a black box are increasingly popular, and radically question the self-perception of modern man.
What, then, discerns man and machine, if at the same causal efficiency they are simply different but seemingly equivalent physical realizations of the same pattern of behavior? How can we counter the purely syntactic symbol manipulation of complex algorithms? Fundamental questions of this kind evade clear answers and call for analysis in the area of tension provided by individual introspection and artistic work.
The three artists approach the subject »Black Box« as experimenters, thereby creating a system of tests in which events can be followed, but which also lends itself to substantiating different modus operandi. Oscillating between possible and impossible implementations, they transform notions of reality and illusion into a dimension of functional describability, while revealing the character of the exhibition space as an in-between place.
The artist's approach is closer to an unveiling than a usage of the space, marking less an attempt at organization than the activation of forms of behavior and conditions. The artistic media used in this range from photographs and drawings to installation and sound. Not least of all, the exhibition is marked by a moment of ignorance, in which none of the artists are aware of each other's intentions and strategies.
Benjamin Laurent Aman (* 1981 in Rouen) graduated in 2004 from the Nancy Academy of Fine Arts. Since then his work has been shown in several French and international group exhibitions. In 2007 he had his first solo exhibition in Luxembourg, presenting a mixture of performance, drawings and installation. In the last 5 years he has released almost 20 records, some of them on his own label »Razzle Dazzle«. He has also done cover art for other musicians. Benjamin Laurent Aman works in Rosières aux Salines and Berlin.
Sébastien Maloberti (* 1976 in Paris) graduated in 2001 from the Clermont-Ferrand Academy of Fine Arts. His works have been shown in several solo shows in French galleries such as La Malterie in Lille, as well as in several French and German group shows during the last 10 years. Some of Maloberti's works are part of the public collections FRAC Auvergne and Fond D'Art Contemporain Clermont-communauté. He lives and works in Clermont-Ferrand.
Marcel Türkowsky (* 1978 in Berlin) studied Philosophy/Musicology at Humboldt University, Berlin and received his MA in Sound Studies/Sound Art from the Berlin University of the Arts in 2008. As an artist, composer and musician he combines the worlds of audio and visual with recontextualizing different media - appropriating ideas from music, film, literature and collecting - in performances, installations and film projects. He did numerous national and international performances (amongst others at the Transmediale in Berlin), released several works as a soundartist and film composer and participated in several group shows. A recent collaboration in a solo exhibition with Elise Florenty could just be seen in 2009 at Centre D'Art Contemporain in Delme, France.
Opening Reception: 10 June 2009, 7-10 pm
Duration: until 1 July 2009
Opening hours: We-Sa, 2-3 pm or by appointment.
