The Wilderness Hidden Underneath

Elias Heuninck (°1986, Belgium) got interested in the use of a contemporary form of the landscape-image for various experiments. His works do sometimes involve different media, but they always touch on the material of film and the notion of cinema. He gently disorients the audience by changing the perspective in space, on paper, or in a digital data file.

— Lyrical Data, video, 2010 
‘Lyrical Nitrate’ (1991), a film by Peter Delpeut, is composed of old found-film fragments. These were still printed on nitrate film, which is a delicate material. Not only is it highly flammable, but it also can’t withstand the decay of time. As the film progresses, the image further and further degrades until the separation between the image and the substrate dissolves. An incomplete file of this film is a contemporary form of degradation. It plays a game, just like the sensitive nitrate, with the disappearance and reappearance of the image. 

The work of Seppe De Meyere (°1993, Belgium) characterizes itself substantially through replication and light. Provoked by atmospheres of unease, eeriness and stasis, his paintings constitute a slow digestion of the human form over time, often placed in ambiguous spaces.

Tapping into the feeling of segmented scanners, his work creates a rippling gravitas that generates the perception of a faltering visual echo – his imagery is projected through the lenses of our contemporary vices, initiating a feeling of an uncomfortable familiarity, culminating in a recognizable, yet neoteric reality. Seppe De Meyere is part of the founding core of the 404-collective. They’re currently establishing a vibrant community of artists, with emphasis on artistic transparency.

— 'Inertia', oil on canvas, 2019 
— 'Vogue Daddy', oil on canvas, 2019 

— 'Egg (Hillary’s Chair)', oil on canvas, 2019 

— 'Vernal Equinox', oil on canvas, 2019 

— 'HF Zero', oil on canvas, 2019 

— 'La Scollatura', acryl on paper, 2017 
— 'Estasi', acryl on paper, 2017 
— 'Pietà', oil on canvas, 2016 
— 'The Rape', acryl on paper, 2017 

Karolien Chromiak (°1989), based in Brussels, creates work that’s situated on the intersection between object and digital image. Her work investigates the connection between digital and physical space and often takes the form of mixed media installations. In these installations she often works with light and light sensitive media. Through her actions she unveils the borders of these media where representation disappears and a more abstract aesthetic becomes visible, with a focus on materiality. In her artistic practice she searches for non-obvious connections in order to create something that is contemporary, qualitative and imbedded in a larger socio-cultural field. 

Her work was shown at, amongst others, SMAK Ghent (BE), MHKA Antwerp (BE), Rundum Art Space, Tallinn (EE), WiE Kultur Berlin (DE), Art Rotterdam (NL), Villa Fleming, Beirut (LB), Crosley Gallery, Florida (VS), The Wrong, New Digital Art Biennale (BE), Poppositions (BE), Extra City Kunsthal (B). She was selected by an international jury to participate in the first edition of STRT Kit, a new initiative by AIR Antwerpen and Extra City Kunsthal Antwerp. She is supported by the Flemish government and she is a council member of Level Five, an artistic ecology in Brussels, Belgium. 

— 'qp_||' , Year of production: 2020, Duration: 04:02, colour, sound .a two-dimensional image_(becomes)_a moving image. .a moving image_(becomes)_a sculpture. 

In the middle of a digital landscape, a qr code is shown. Nothing happens in the landscape. Nothing moves. Slowly, it seems, the geometrical image starts to look different. Were you blinking your eyes? Or were you maybe not paying attention to start with. I mean, there is a lot see at this show.. I can't be sure of what I see. But no. Now it is definitely something else. The image in itself is.. crumbling? No, it is becoming organic. It is fluid. It is liquid. It is abstract. It is expanding and imploding in all directions. It is starting to transform into a shape. It is brutalist architecture, build out of coded stones. It is a flat sculpture, shown on a screen.

— 'samplepoem', Year of production: 2020

'Samplepoem' is oorspronkelijk geschreven voor de 700ste editie van het magazine Filmmagie waarin diverse kunstenaars en filmmakers gevraagd werd een beeld of tekst te creëren rond de het thema “De toekomst van de zevende kunst”. Voor de expo “t.h.w.u.” in Pilar vertaalde de kunstenaar dit gedicht naar een tentoonstellingscontext.

Benjamin Verhoeven (°1990, Belgium) is an installation and video-artist who lives and works in Brussels(BE). He studied at the Ghent Royal Academy of Fine Arts and is a laureate at the HISK. His work evolves around the image as a medium and its (re)production, with audiovisual apparatuses as his main working tool. In his current work he deals with the action of scanning moving images and putting them back into an animated film. He participated in various national and international exhibitions; among them at KANAL/Centre Pompidou(BE), Mu:ZEE(BE), Cinematek(BE), University Art Gallery Irvine, California(US) and the 6th Moscow Biennale, special program(RU). 

— 'Scanning Cinema', kopieermachine, monitor, 2014 
A monitor is placed screen down on a Xerox-machine. The movie that runs is a fragment of ‘L’Eclisse’ from Michelangelo Antonioni. Every minute, the Xerox-machine takes a copy of the screen. The result (the print) falls on the ground. The visitors are free to take a print with them. 

— 'Sculptural Movement: Chapter I & II', stop-motion video, 2016 
'Sculptural Movement: Chapter I & II' consist of 20.000 scans put together in a stop-motion film. Within this piece, the relations between Film (celluloid) and Sculpture (marble) are being explored. ‘Chapter I’ researches the cinematic moving (mobile point of view) of the sculpture. ‘Chapter II’ researches the photography (fixed point of view) of the sculpture in a book, within a moving image.

— '50.000 SCANS', ACT IV - V - VI, stop-motion video, 2018 
'50.000 Scans' focuses on how the choreography of a human body functions in the scanned reality. It explores this scanned dimension and holds it against the historical birth of film and the registration of movement through the medium of photography (E.J. Marey, E. Muybridge). Each Act deals with a different variation on both montage-technique as camera-movement. 

Liselotte’s (°1989, Belgium)practice is moving away from defined concepts of art and the artist. Her research in the editability of the image stimulates a constant interchanging between digital and analogue processes. The artefacts derived out of this, attempt to give residence to matter and texture but as well to speculation and deeper emotion. Running her own screen print studio in Ghent, screen printing is often applied into her practice.

 

In a variaty of media, she creates interfaces to explore alternative outputs to show her work. She defines her practice as ‘print label without fixed limits, indefinite in form' and operates from the name @xox_is_not_alone

 

— 20x30 Engraved foam, plexiglass, lcd screen.
— 20x30 Engraved Foam
— 70x150 Glass plate, adhesive vinyl
— 'variate sizes' Light blue adhesive vinyl

Based in Ghent Belgium, Stien Bekaert (°1985, Belgium) communicates throughout an assembly of mixed media that owes as much to the practice of found imagery and photography as it does to printmaking. A visual concept of decomposing an image takes place in her work. The aspect of layering and new significations, the combination with printmaking ensures that manual and high tech processes are evenly matched. Sofie Crabbé: “Captivated by handicraft, Bekaert experiments with various techniques. She makes etchings, lithographs and monotypes, as well as riso, offset and transfer prints. Through manipulations – such as crops, transformations and blowups – Stien Bekaert deconstructs and creates distance. The compositions, the choice of materials and the meticulous assembling into a new narrative, no detail remains untouched. The main objective is to give the viewer a poetic viewing experience. At times lyrical and dreamy, at others uncanny or disquieting. Always ambiguous and permeated with an unfulfillable desire, true significations disappear.”

 
— 'Unforeseen Events Series', zeefdruk monotype op textiel, 2020 
In the series printed on fabric, Stien Bekaert creates graphic reinterpretations of found images showing natural disasters (hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, forest fires). Through her interventions, the images acquire a new poetic resonance. Bekaert reprocesses the material she has collected: documentary photographs become abstractions, works are printed on fabric instead of paper. By combining fragments of different images to create new compositions, and by changing the colours and support, the original significance of the photographs disappears. 

Four different image elaborations, techniques and materials were used to create this ensemble of prints. Stien Bekaert took a new approach to the making of this work in which she privileged materials over imagery. 

Naama Roth (°1989, Israel) is geboren in Tel-Aviv, Israël, en woont en werkt zowel in Tel-Aviv als in Brussel. Roth is geïnteresseerd in de deconstructie van beelden en de manier waarop we ze waarnemen in een digitaal tijdperk, gedomineerd door beeldschermen. Door schermen te ontmantelen en hun onderdelen te combineren met sculpturale vormen, creëert Roth werken die oscilleren tussen het tastbare en het digitale, het object en het zuivere beeld, verleidelijk en destabiliserend als een pixelachtige luchtspiegeling.

— 'Palmtree', LCD scherm, 2018 

Eva Vermeiren (°1989, Belgium)lives in Ghent and mainly focuses on analog work. In her collages, drawings, and paintings, Vermeiren is looking for ways to let the texture and nature of the matter itself speak. She observes, registers and articulates her vision of how images come across to her. Her work revolves around the material and technique, rather than to start from the idea. She arranges shape, space, and proportion as if she places objects on a table. Everything influences one another. By looking for the right balance when arranging her work, she creates an atmosphere in which you, as a viewer, are encouraged to come up with your own associations. Thus, creating a new context that offers room for personal interpretation. Her work often arises from self-imposed rules, for example by implementing a predetermined cutting method.

— 'Votre Maison', collages, 2019-2020 

'Votre Maison' is a growing series of cut-up interior magazines from the 70s-80s. Text, recognizable shapes, and objects have been removed according to the same type of 'system', creating new images. The different layers show a glimpse of other interiors, thus resulting in an entirely new form that derives from the viewer’s intuition and imagination.