Two Winter Exhibitions

22nd November 2020News

In the dark month of December 2020 my project “Eine Katze Hat 7/9 Leben” / “A Cat Has 7/9 Lives” will be shown in two winter exhibitions:
• The video art work A Cat Has Seven Lives, 7:42, in gallery VBK, Berlin, as part of the group exhibition “Wie leben?“, 04.12. – 31.12.2020, www.vbk-art.de
• The 9 object boxes A Cat Has Nine Lives in gallery LortzingART, Hannover, as part of the group exhibition “Vermischtes”, from 28 November 2020 – www.lortzingart.de

A CAT HAS 7/9 LIVES
“A Cat Has 7/9 Lives” includes a series of objects and a video in animation and mixed media.
Old and new photos, scanned materials such as rope, engravings in plexiglass, film, leaves, were processed into a series of small boxes. Afterwards a video was created from these, in which the images were reworked and enhanced with various digital animation techniques.
The seven lives of the cat follow each other in a time line, and each life is announced with bells or drums. The seventh life is the longest part of the film and is the secret of the search for the hermit, i.e.: the spiritual search. The hermit is not found: the sublime remains unreachable.

A Cat Has Seven Lives, video

A Cat Has Nine Lives, objects

Reconnecting Songlines

3rd October 2020InstallationsSonglines, wild and connected

A new installation in the Songlines project, from October 9 – November 1, 2020, in the exhibition Wild and Connected Plus, Gallery VBK, Berlin.

Video of the exhibition opening:

In this work I combine newer and older works. Inspired by the “songlines” of indigenous Australians, I try to reconnect the birth of the individual with the origin of life. Going along a network of paths, signs and memories, we rediscover our place in nature.

… the labyrinth of invisible pathways which meander all over Australia and are known to Europeans as “Dreaming-tracks” or “Songlines”; to the Aboriginals as the “Footprints of the Ancestors” or the “Way of the Lore”. Aboriginal Creation myths tell of the legendary totemic being who wandered over the continent in the Dreamtime, singing out the name of everything that crossed their path – birds, animals, plants, rocks, waterholes – and so singing the world into existence.
(Bruce Chatwin, The Songlines, 1987)

In the culture of Aboriginal Australians, the long ritual walks in the desert of individuals who undertake the Walkabout* (as mentioned by Bruce Chatwin in “The Songlines”, 1987) play an essential role in allowing contact and exchanges of resources (both material and spiritual) between populations separated by enormous distances. In my work, I let myself be guided by the idea of the Aboriginal Australians to see a “territory” not as a determined piece of land, but as a dynamic network of paths, tracks, and songs – so well described by Chatwin.

Click on the images below to see the previous works and read more about the Songlines project.

In the Moving Labyrinth

15th August 2020Recent Works & Highlights, News, Works

IN THE MOVING LABYRINTH / IM BEWEGTEN LABYRINTH
Video art and other actions by Maria Korporal
Works from 2008 to 2020

Exhibition September 5-27, 2020

LortzingART – Lortzingstraße 1 – 30177 Hannover, Germany
www.lortzingart.de

TV Broadcast of the exhibition

The Labyrinth Room in the exhibition

The opening took place as part of the Zinnober weekend, which starts the autumn season every year with galleries, art houses and artist groups. Inspired by the artists’ festival around Kurt Schwitters in the 1920s, Zinnober celebrates art in Hanover.

EXHIBITED WORKS

KORPORAL LABYRINTH
The four videos in KORPORAL LABYRINTH tell a story about an inner journey in different stages. The drawing of a labyrinth was the starting point for the project, along with a series of footage shot mainly from July 2013 to January 2014. In the Korporal Labyrinth the artist explores different ways of walking through the labyrinth.
In 2018 she has started the project again, with the drawing of new labyrinths as a “drawing performance” in connection with the projection of the videos.
One of these labyrinth drawings is the basis for the new interactive video installation KORPORAL MAZE-A-MAZE or the “Railway Flower Labyrinth”, 2020. By beating a handmade shaman drum with a labyrinth drawing, viewers can find their way into the same labyrinth on the video screen. When they reach the center, a surprising event unfolds: a railway flower blooms from the heart of the labyrinth. Railway flowers are the objects that the artist finds on her walks along railway tracks. You almost get the impression that things have grown spontaneously out of the railway, but then you realise that all these things have been left behind by people who have walked the same path. See also the photo work Railway Flowers, actually on exhibition in the Berlin gallery GG3.

KORPORAL LABYRINTH:
4 videos in loop

New interactive installation KORPORAL MAZE-A-MAZE / Railway Flower Labyrinth

KORPORAL ZOO
“Korporal Zoo” is a series of video works by Maria Korporal, which observe the animal and human world with several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental. The project is a work in progress started in 2010. The videos in “Korporal Zoo” have been designed with a wide variety of techniques and each work is an animated mixture of photo and film footage, as well as drawings and collages.
The project consists of 9 videos and a video installation “Reynard the Fox”, with 12 triangular canvases (digital print with manual intervention) and a video projection that plays with all the elements.

Reynard the Fox, video installation

Korporal Zoo

A Cat Has Seven Lives, video

A Cat Has Nine Lives, objects

Tree Travelling

12th August 2020Recent Works & Highlights, Interactive works, InstallationsTree Travelling, climate crisis, art and environment, sustainability

“Tree Travelling” is a multidisciplinary project, consisting of the interactive installation “Tree Travelling”, the short video “Corona Tree Travelling”, the online interactive platform “Tree Travelling: Boom the Boom!” (which will soon be shown at the Festival Nuvola Creativa, Villa di Massenzio, Rome, from 2nd to 16th December 2023) and the print series “Tree Travelling Journal”.

The interactive installation includes a video of the world map with all airplanes that are currently flying, generated from a real-time radar. In front of the monitor there is a small tree trunk. When you move it, you fill the world with growing trees, while the airplanes slowly disappear.

Worldwide, more than 1.4 billion people now travel internationally every year, up from 500 million trips in 1995. The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) predicts that figure will reach or exceed 1.8 billion by 2030.
The tourism boom brings economic growth, but the damages are severe, especially from an ecological point of view. Almost all cheap international mass travels are flights. It is alarming when you realize how many airplanes are in the air right now and how much CO2 is emitted every moment.

With my little tree trunk I invite the spectators to stand stil for just a while and reflect about this boom. When they move the trunk, they let trees travel all over the world, interrupt the constant air traffic and make the air brighter. It’s time we become aware of what trees mean to our earthly life. We can hardly do anything better than planting trees to help to save the future of this planet.

Tree Travelling, 3 fine art prints mounted on forex

When this project was conceived, we were in the middle of a global tourism boom. But then the corona virus came. The tourism boom collapsed in no time. The real-time radar view of the aircraft has changed drastically. I created a new video work, “Corona Tree Travelling”, which is not interactive – the corona crisis make the trees grow without human intervention. The video première was on August 23 in the exhibition Die Sehnsucht nach dem Grünen.

Two stills from the video “Corona Tree Travelling”

An excerpt from the video in the exhibition
Die Sehnsucht nach dem Grünen.

The Tree Travelling Journal, digital prints on A3, follows the development of the project in times of coronavirus and climate change. It is a work in progress – what the future holds…

Exhibitions and screenings:
• The online version of the project, Tree Travelling: Boom the Boom! was shown in the 5° Festival Ecrã, which took place online on July 15-25, 2021, and from 19th to 21st June 2020 as part of the festival 48 Stunden Neukölln in Berlin
• The video “Corona Tree Travelling” was screened in the exhibitions “Green iDeal” (2020), Biennale della Tecnologia, Politecnico, Turin (Italy) and “Corona and Climate Crisis” (2020), Group Global 3000, Berlin.
• The entire multidisciplinary installation was shown in the exhibition Die Sehnsucht nach dem Grünen, Kulturmühle Perwenitz, August 23 – September 27, 2020.

ZoOm into my Room

20th July 2020Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, HighlightsEdoardo Pistolesi Somigli

The video above is a short trailer.
The full version is 4:57 long and is available as pay-per-view on www.visualcontainer.tv

-> click here for the video on VisualcontainerTV

Screenings and presentations:
• March 8-24, 2024: Corporeazione. La sacralità di una lotta moderna, Palazzo Caccia Canali, Sant’Oreste RM, Italy.
• February 23, 2023: Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal in the context of Premio Borgo Video, curated by gallery La scala d’oro, Sala Dionigi (Chiesa Valdese), Rome, Italy.
• November 3-18, 2022: IMAGE PLAY ► International Video Art Festival 2022 (PT), curated by Hernando Urrutia.
• April 1, 2022: QRC.PRJCT Official Selection, K.O.T.E.S. (Booze Cooperativa), Athens, Greece.
• December 15-21, 2021: Cineaste International Film Festival of India (CIFFI), Noida, Delhi NCR, India.
• April 23 – May 16, 2021: UPDATE 21, Gallery VBK, Berlin.
• October 30 – November 1, 2020: contemporary art ruhr (C.A.R.), INNOVATIVE ART FAIR, Essen.

Our social and private life has undergone a drastic turn towards digitalisation as a consequence of the pandemic that originated in the beginning of 2020. Human contacts now often are replaced by video-chat Zoom or Jitsi.
In this video I try to show the human experience of loneliness and impotence during their „meetings“ in cyberspace. Even if the light image accurately depicts the person, eye contact is impossible. We look at a screen that shows a simulacra of some other human being and of ourselves.
The video develops seemless in three stages: in the “introduction” images of video chats trasfer proper light beams from chat rooms into real rooms, followed by what could be called the phase of “creation”, in which a lonely person who’s chatting tries to pull the simulacrum out of the light beams, zoom it into her room and bring it to life, and thirdly the phase “longing”, in which the eternal longing for the deep contact with the other is expressed.

In his science fiction novel Neuromancer, published in 1984, William Gibson wrote the revealing phrase: “Cyberspace. A consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation …” In the last decades we saw this global development coming about, but the Covid virus has accelerated this significantly. However, the video goes further back in time. Cinema lovers will unfailingly recognize the references to „Maschinen-Maria“ of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927), another visionary of the technological future. And the profiles in the last scene, which hesitantly approach each other and break away again and again, are ancient Greco-Roman sculptures, simulacra from the cradle of our culture.

title: ZoOm into my Room
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 4’57”
year: 2020
music: “Blue Funk Hypertransit” (excerpts) by Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli
concept, images, animation, effects and montage: Maria Korporal
© Maria Korporal 2020

Edoardo Pistolesi Somigli is co-founder & Station Manager @ Dots Unlimited Radio, a multichannel webradio dedicated to free music, sound research and new forms of communication and language: www.duradio.net
Knob-twiddler in the field of experimental music, fond of all possible links between sound and psychology, undergoing multiple ambient/noise/psychoacoustic creative projects plus -within the scientific community- currently approaching sounds and frequencies to be applied in several alternative cognitive-behavioral therapies in the treatment of various forms of OCD, freely and originally inspired by some tests conducted by Jean Piaget in the 40s of last century.

Stills from the video:

The First After-Corona Kiss

16th April 2020Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, Highlights

The video was created in the first half of April 2020, while the world was rapidly overwhelmed by coronavirus, also known as Covid-19, and most countries were in lockdown. Physical contact was identified as the main cause of infection and to be absolutely avoided. Social distancing of at least 1,5mt was mandatory, and masks strongly recommended if not prescribed, to protect ourself and others.
In this video I visualize the tensions of this situation: the sorrow for those who fell ill and those who died, the fear to become infected and the frustration to keep friends and loved ones at safe distance. In the end I imagine the liberation and the beauty of the time when we can hug each other again: it will feel like the magic of your first romantic kiss ever.

“The First After-Corona Kiss” won the award Premio Borgo 2022 of gallery La scala d’oro, Rome.
On February 23, 2023, there will be a screening of selected videos in the Sala della Chiesa Valdese, Rome – see Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal

Screenings and presentations:
• March 8-24, 2024: Corporeazione. La sacralità di una lotta moderna, Palazzo Caccia Canali, Sant’Oreste RM, Italy.
• June 23, 2023: Cuerpo Transparente 2nd edition, Universidad Nacional de Artes, Área Transdepartamental de Crítica de Artes, Buenos Aires, Argentina. See also linktr.ee and instagram for updates and links.
• February 23, 2023: Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal in the context of Premio Borgo Video, curated by gallery La scala d’oro, Sala Dionigi (Chiesa Valdese), Rome, Italy.
• December 17, 2022: Cuerpo Transparente, facade of Audiovisual Producción Center Leonardo Favio, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• November 3-18, 2022: IMAGE PLAY ► International Video Art Festival 2022 (PT), curated by Hernando Urrutia.
• November 1, 2021 – March 27, 2022: Transborda III, Q-TV, curated by Alberto Guerreiro in the Festival Books & Movies, Alcobaça, Portugal.
• November 8-11, 2021: Festival Internacional de Videoarte SPMAV, Pelotas (BR). Screening stil online, click here
• October 30, 2021 and ongoing: Miami New Media Festival (RAW Selection), several venues in all parts of the world.
• November 12 – December 13, 2020: 33rd Festival Les Instants Vidéo 2020, Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille.
• June 19 – July 26, 2020: UPDATE 20 “ART IS NOT CANCELLED”, Galerie VBK, Berlin.
• June 9, 2020: Connect 2020 – International Videoarts Festival, The Firehouse Cultural Center, Ruskin (Florida).
• May 25, 2020 and ongoing: The Crown of the Corona, online exhibition curated by Boris Kostadinov, Artqol.
• April 23 – May 31, 2020: Maria Korporal Monography. Selected works 2008-2020, on VisualcontainerTV

title: The First After-Corona Kiss
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 4’05”
year: 2020
photos of the artist: Astrid Astra Indricane
music in the first scene: Live Set for My Castle of Quiet (excerpt) by Thomas Carnacki with Jesse Quattro
music in the last scene: Breathing by Spectacular Sound Productions
concept, images, animation, effects and montage: Maria Korporal
© Maria Korporal 2020

La Vitruviana

12th March 2020Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, HighlightsVerein Berliner Künstler

Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of a male figure perfectly inscribed in a circle and square, known as the “Vitruvian Man”, illustrates what he believed to be a divine connection between the human form and the universe. Beloved for its beauty and symbolic power, it is one of the most famous images in the world. But what would happen if a female figure takes the place of the male figure of the Vitruvian Man? Will the divine spell with the universe brake up?
Less famous than Leonardo da Vinci, but well known and important for his pioneering work in photographic motion studies was the English photographer Eadweard Muybridge. His sequences of the human figure in motion show men and women occupied with several activities. A closer view reveals a traditional role pattern: the men manifest themselves in amazing athletic movements, while the women are busy with domestic activities or children. One of the sequences that deeply impressed me is called “Turning Around in Surprise and Running Away”. It shows a naked woman who covers her eyes and her genitals while she twists her body away from the camera.
Muybridge’s woman and Leonardo’s man are physically similar in many respects. They both express the ideal forms and proportions set by the classic standards of human beauty, but their self-awareness of the place in the world they belong to seems very different. The video endorses this observation and shows symbolically how the eyes of society guided by conventions determine this attitude.

The video above is a short trailer. The full video is 2:14. For information please contact me.

Screenings:
• March 8-24, 2024: Corporeazione. La sacralità di una lotta moderna, Palazzo Caccia Canali, Sant’Oreste RM, Italy.
• February 23, 2023: Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal in the context of Premio Borgo Video, curated by gallery La scala d’oro, Sala Dionigi (Chiesa Valdese), Rome, Italy.
• December 3, 2020: Flick Film Festival (USA)
• May 1-31, 2020: Video Art Miden online
• April 23 – May 31, 2020: Maria Korporal Monography. Selected works 2008-2020, on VisualcontainerTV
• November 28 – December 1, 2019: Vierte Welle Festival, Lichtblick-Kino, Berlin
• der fragile Mikrokosmos ist vor Scham aus den Fugen, 1 – 30 December 2018 in Galerie VBK, Berlin

Breathearth Ovation

13th February 2020The Breathearth Project, Interactive works, Installations, WorksBreathearth

NEW: The work is shown in the exhibition SCHÖN, Projektraum Galerie M, Berlin, 05.02.- 02.04.2022

Breathearth Ovation, formerly called Breathearth Sprouting, is a new interactive installation in the Breathearth Project. The orginal version Breathearth Sprouting should have been shown in the exhibition Bild ohne Bild in Spring 2020, but due to COVID-19 hygiene measures the work was shown only virtually.
In Autumn 2021 I created an absolutely corona proof alternative. I called this new version „Breathearth Ovation“: instead of breathing, you have to clap in your hands near the earth globe. The sound of your hands clapping will allow the flowers to come out of their lockdown.
Breathearth Ovation was shown in December 2021 in the Winter Exhibition of Verein Berliner Künstler:

The work “Breathearth Sprouting” for the site-specific exhibition in the LortzingART Gallery:

Vierte Welle Festival

8th November 2019News

28 November – 1 December 2019
Lichtblick-Kino
Kastanienallee 77, 10435 Berlin
About the festival: viertewellefestival.com

The feminist Festival Vierte Welle, aims to provide visibility to women artists and help to raise awareness of gender inequality, citizen participation, work to prevent prejudice, fight against discrimination through audiovisuals, MADE BY WOMEN, of the so-called Fourth-wave feminism. The Fourth-wave feminism is articulated through the creation of audiovisual and written contents of philosophical, political, economic, social, ecological and cultural character; academic or not, and the dissemination of them through social networks and traditional media.

Maria Korporal participates with her video La Vitruviana. The video will be screened on Saturday 30th November as part of the program #BODYPOSITIVITY.

Breath-Earth Beth-El

18th October 2019Recent Works & Highlights, The Breathearth Project, Interactive works, Installations, WorksBreathearth

“Breath-Earth Beth-El” is a new installation which is part of the The Breathearth Project.

The work was installed in the exhibition 100% FEMALE, organized by Stichting White Cube, from the 24th to the 27th of October 2019 in the Grand or St Laurens Church, Alkmaar (NL).

This version is called Breath-Earth Beth-El and it refers to the Old Testament story of the stone on which the Biblical patriarch Jacob rested his head when the vision of a ladder to heaven appeared to him. Jacob anointed the stone and named it Beth-El, meaning “House of God.” In Jacob‘s vision, God said to him: “I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.”
In Breath-Earth Beth-El the flowers, leaves and insects appear on the surface of a pulsing stone. Every session begins with a different, blank stone. Thus I offer to the visitors the possibility to start all over again. Could your breath spread out a better ecological footprint than humanity left so far?

Breathearth is an interactive installation made with a Raspberry Pi, a small earth globe and a projector.
Visitors are invited to pick up the small globe and gently blow on it. With every breath flowers and leaves appear on a surface or an object until it is covered with colours and life. Every new session presents other combinations and it‘s a surprise to see what flowers one‘s breathing has created. The natural vegetation disappears when you stop blowing: the earth cannot live without our breath!
Breathearth is a work in progress. Several editions have been created. Versions exist for screens of different sizes and for large outdoor projections, with different backgrounds, leaves, flowers and insects. Click here to see other versions.