HARABEL Contemporary Art Platform , invited by REJA, presents two works by artist Anri Sala: “Take Over” (2017) and “Mixed Behavior Reloaded” (2018) on May 30th, 2018 (20:30). In the time interval between two videos labeled “Take Over”, a conversation is being held between the author and the audience, he tries to examine the ideas transmitted into his work.
Take Over (Marseillaise), 2017
Video projection,
Duration 7:56 min
Take Over (Internationale), 2017
Video projection,
Duration 7:56 min
“Take Over” (2017) is a video and sound installation comrised of two films. It deals with the main themes in Anri Sala’s work by exploring the relationship between music and narrative, architecture and film and the mutual qualities of different media, merging their respective boundaries.
The conceptual starting point are two popular musical works, affiliated by an entangled political and cultural history, the Marseillaise and the Internationale. Composed in 1792, the Marseillaise was closely related to the French Revolution but also quickly spread to other countries where it became a symbol for the overthrow of oppressive regimes.
Thus the text written in 1871 for “Internationale” was initially set in the melody of “Marseillaise” until 1888 when its original music was composed and the song became the standard anthem of the socialist movement
Both anthems have undergone major changes in their political connotations: from revolution, restoration, socialism, resistance and patriotism, to additional associations with colonization and oppression in the second half of the twentieth century (as national anthems of France and the Soviet Union, respectively). “Take Over” makes audible the close relationship of these two anthems and discovers the musical connection in the footsteps of this symbolic change. It is the very sound that determines the film: the change of focus on the film is linked to the musical tonalities and the movement of the keys that produce the music, even if the background of this system remains elusive. Both films have been originally conceptualized to run simultaneously with their respective soundtracks playing in tandem. For this presentation, the films will be screened one after the other.
Take Over features pianist Clemens Hund-Göschel.
Mixed Behaviour Reloaded, 2018
Performance
Duration approx. 30 min
“Mixed Behavior Reloaded” (2018) is a performance, presented for the first time the public, a sequel to Mixed Behavior’s(2003), Anri’s famous work. This work embodies the most important topics and strategies of the artist’s work, placing in the same visual concept the foreground and the backstage, the light and the darkness, the sound and the picture.
In the original “Mixed Behavior” 2003, a lonely DJ played by Albanian DJ Minimim, spins the record and plays music on the rooftop of a building in Tirana. It rains and is New Year’s eve . The DJ, leaning over his equipment to play music, is covered by a tarpaulin, while on the background the fireworks explode around him, giving light to darkness; their noise crashes at the same time as the sound of the firing guns , a local Albanian festive tradition at the time.
Gradually, we realize that the video’s soundtrack plays in manipulated synchrony with the fireworks, the DJ appears to control a scene that stretches across the background like a movie screen or canvas. However, while the music proceeds in a predictable, linear fashion, seeming to reflect the fireworks in the distance, we realize that the images are periodically moving backward; almost undetectably, Fireworks seem as if they are moving back to get back into their This action suggests the “scratching” practice of DJs on musical discs, quickly and repeatedly, turning the sound back and forth.
For Mixed Behaviour Reloaded, Sala works again with DJ Minimim, inviting him to play in tandem with instances of himself from 15 years ago. The performance will bring back the echo of Tirana sounds of 2003 represented in Mixed Behaviour, now in a completely new sound constellation, as it will resonate the night of May 30th 2018, at REJA, nearby the central Boulevard of Tirana, now manipulating sound synchrony with the city’s vibrant noises.