SARA WOLFERT
Exhibitions
Events
Within Haggled, Twisted, Faintly Smelling Arches
Head Channel & Lion - Waking of the Sleeping Lion Ear
HEAD CHANNEL & LION - WAKING OF THE SLEEPING LION EAR
Solo at Entrée, Bergen.
https://entreebergen.no/Sara-Wolfert
Right: Head Channel & Lion - Waking of the Sleeping Ear (animation still)
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Left: Lion Sauce (animation still)
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EAR CHANNEL & LION (/THE WAKING OF THE SLEEPING LION EAR).
Solo ar Galleri BOX, Göteborg
EAR CHANNEL & LION
(/The Waking of the Sleeping Lion Ear)
Installationen Ear Channel & Lion (/Waking of the Sleeping Lion Ear) ett arbete som vuxit fram tillsammans med ett intresse för ett upphovsrättsfall kring en berömd låt..
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Left: Lion Channels I, II, III
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Right "Studies for a Stage", "Grip"
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Left: Whodunnit- If This is the Last Episode, I'll be the Pilot (video sound still)
Whodunnit is an ongoing collaborative project with Anne-Liis Kogan (ES/NO). The project centres on the production and staging of a full length script which has been produced and conceived in conjunction with a few guides: The dramatic format “Whodunnit”, formulas for popular drama and script writing, and an interest in real life media debates in the aftermath of two explosive teenage “riots” in Stockholm suburbs and in the UK 2013, and 2011 respectively. The fictive drama takes place in a classroom in discussion between teacher, principal and students. The dialogue circulates around recent tumultuous events and minor crimes in the fictive town where the drama takes place. The discussion revolves also around a “car park” - the latter providing a link between disparate events and people in the community. As the discussions and interrogations deepen, the question of guilt seems to become increasingly evasive and complex. The script is inspired by Agatha Christie’s Poirot, J.D Ballard’s Kingdom Come, The 80’s teen film classic The Breakfast Club, and a long line of popular soaps and detective dramas. During certain stages of the script writing process, we have invited a “ghost writer” trained in PR language and the language of New Public Management to rework strategic passages of the script.
Give Me Hell, at Spektrum Berlin
In a new multinational cultural self-reinvention project set in the future — May 4th 2016 — nine artists have been rounded up to be retrained from to their positions as Swedish massage practitioners — a prior attempt to propel artists into more serviceable civil activities — to stand-up comedians. This will be their first public appearance. In this scenario, art is being no longer administered by middlemen, but governed directly by the top political figurehead. Each 5-minute stand up will be monitored and its quality will be assessed by the current chief of state. This is still unknown to the performers. In fact, what is also unknown to them is that the assignment serves an additional purpose — the performance is in fact a recasting for their next retraining position, in a place not unknown to women.
Arranged by/ a service provided by Ana-Maria Hadji-Culea
with support by The Swedish Arts Grants Committee
A LINE THAT LOOKS FRUIT
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Not too long ago, a hand written note signed Rudyard Kipling was sold at an auction in New York
for a substantial sum. In the note the author confesses plagiarism. The note reads:
[...] In regard to my account of the Law of the Jungle ../../ . it is extremely possible that I have
helped myself promiscuously but at present cannot remember from whose stories I have stolen.
In this work of animation and text, I linger at the well-known story of The Jungle Book, while
approaching a specific history of Intellectual Property policy and its colonial heritage. In more
detail: two release dates, 1893-1895 and 1967, juxtaposed with policy events around the same
time. In addition to that, notions of “expanded” IP protection.
The question that came to me was: Is it possible to talk about a wide array of things through just
one single topic, in this case, fruit?
The answer is: it depends.
Background:
../.. THE MASTER WORDS OF THE JUNGLE THAT SHALL PROTECT HIM.. (said Balloo)
The Jungle Book, was released between 1894-1896. The Law of the Jungle, one of the story’s
central features, is told through the voice of anthropomorphic beings (wolves, a bear, a panther) in
“lessons” to the radically orphaned child, “Mowgli”. The laws laid out in the story, it is often stated,
bear much resemblance to the imperial laws at the time of Kipling’s writings.
The date of release, 1894-96, occurs ten years after a conference; the first signing of the Berne
convention in 1886. The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works was the
first treatise to protect clearly fixed, authored works on a truly international scale.
One of the most renowned adaptations of the Jungle Book was made by Walt Disney animation
studio (the last full feature animation that Walt himself overlooked before his death). The full length
animated film was released in 1967, the same exact year, a Berne revision meeting was held in
Stockholm, “The Stockholm Meeting”. This was the first official Berne revision meeting where the
former colonies were present at the discussion table. At this conference, numerous criticisms and
complaints were voiced against the Berne Convention as bias and a “euro-centric”.
Among the many things touched upon was the prospects of protecting “the un-authored” ; or
expression at the time referred to as “folklore”. Falling outside of the realm of protections; what was
referred to here was content of unknown or multiple authors, unfixed works, “folklore” etc - how
could these expressions be protected from “exploitation”, “cultural expropriation” etc within the
boundaries of the Berne convention?
The idea / expression distinction has been a tightly guarded line in Intellectual Property law -
nevertheless, in recent times; this line has been increasingly blurred. The blurring of the line
between “idea” and “expression” concerns not in the least protections around fictional and
graphical characters. Characters are indeed valuable assets, as they can go and “live a life of their
own” outside the work itself, they are often liable to expanded or “multiple” protections.
Sometimes they fall under both copyright and trademark law, the latter making the protections
potentially perpetual.
Performance lecture version:
“If you have the time to wait for a reply, I would recommend you to contact the author”
The lecture material combines several threads of information and juxtaposes them: international treaties in Intellectual Property law (and their colonial subtexts) with release dates of the story of “The Jungle Book”. (We follow also the odd portraits and developments of a familiar character; Mowgli). This is told through a filter of GUI (graphical user interface) and with sidetracks into stories (/histories) and decisions concerning the GUI itself. With the lecture and format there is an issue relating more directly to the visual organisation of information itself.
HIDE HOLE PARK
HIDE HOLE PARK
Sara Wolfert
13e november – 27e november 2010
Vernissage 13e november kl. 14-16.30 på DKTUS & 18.30-21.00 Lilla Baren Riche.
HIDE HOLE PARK är en utställning av konstnären Sara Wolfert. Utställningen består av en serie handritade teckningar som animerats och gjorts interaktiva med digital teknik. Betraktaren kan förflyttas genom miljöerna som stilmässigt påminner om den sorters visionära skissteckningar arkitekter använder som presentationsunderlag i utformandet av framtida stadsdelar.
I sina tidigare verk har Wolfert arbetat med frågor kring äganderätt i virtuella såväl som fysiska rum. Projektet HIDE HOLE PARK tar som utgångspunkt parken som en offentlig plats för rekreation; ett avskiljt och definierat utrymme som erbjuder ett slags avbrott i stadsmiljön som annars präglas av en social statusförvandlingsprocess med utestängning som följd. Utställningen presenteras på två platser i Stockholm, på Riche lilla baren och DKTUS i Gamla Stan. Projektet utgår ifrån parkens sociala och kulturella betydelse i det offentliga rummet, en betydelse som både skiftat historiskt och kan framhållas i relation till de båda platsernas där verket visas. På Riche kan verket ses som en bearbetning av krogrummet som belyser dess specifika funktion som mötesplats i Stockholm. På DKTUS, ett dolt galleri i turisttäta Gamla Stan, befinner vi oss i en av Stockholms äldsta bevarade källare, invid vad som en gång var slottets matträdgård och en plats för rekreation och underhållning med historiska kopplingar till hovlivet. Här fungerar verket som en psykogeografisk multiteckning av parken och dess komplexa relation till det offentliga rummet.
Sara Wolfert är masterstudent i fri konst på Konstfack. Hon har tidigare ställt ut på Projetáveis – 7ª Bienal do Mercosul tillsammans med Mathias Tervo (2009) och deltog tillsammans med (dåvarande) Piratbyrån / The Bureau of Piracy i Venedigbiennalen (2009) och Manifesta 7 (2008). I samarbete med Lina Persdotter Carlsson deltog hon med projektet The Men and Women’s Club i Who Makes and Owns Your Work (2007) anordnat av Iaspis.
HIDE HOLE PARK är curerad av Nathalie Åhbeck och pågår till och med 27e november.
Programmering och tack till Mathias Tervo.
Installation interaktiv animation Dktus
installation (fem animationsskärmar) Riche Lilla Baren. Med tillhörande ljudverk som spelas på Riches toaletter
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Ear Channel & Plucked, co-exhibition, reading, and performance event. Ortstermin Tiergarten, Moabit, Berlin. With Nathalie Wuerth
MEN AND WOMENS CLUB AND HIDE HOLE PARK PÅ KULTURHUSETS BIBLIOTEK
Hide Hole Park på Kulturhusets bibliotek. tillsammans med west bibliotek på Kulturhusets bibliotek som del av Supermarket
SHARING & THEFT
Web: Mathias Tervo
Using pyramid icons to represent worldwide traffic to the file-sharing website X, the map is generated by actual users and shows an actual "world" within our accustomed worldview.
First shown in conjunction with the project Embassy of Piracy at the first Internet Pavillion of Venice Biennale 2009, As an autonomous project at 7a Bienal de Mercusol, Porto Alegre 2009 and at Borlänge Trafikverk 2011 and at Furtherfield, London 2014.
http://www.sharingiscaringmap.org/
THE MEN & WOMEN'S CLUB
(with Lina Persdotter Carlsson)
The starting point and conceptual framework for this collaborative scriptwriting site is an actual historical club (The Men and Women's Club) that existed a few years at the turn of the century 1890-1900. The club had high ambitions and an agenda of equality but ended up disintegrating dramatically as idealistic claims were sabotaged by hidden power play, patriarchal structures and romantic entanglements in a nearly soap-opera-esque development of events. The project takes the form of several scripts to be written collaboratively in an open forum. The text is absolutely editable in a democratic fashion: still, the inspiration is found in notions of secret societies and exclusive memberships and the paranoia sometimes generated by these.
The open scripts are documented continuously and features various “releases”
The Men and Women’s Club (2007-2017)
First shown at the multipart event Who Makes and Owns your Work, organised by Iaspis konstnärsnämnden in Stockholm 2007 www.whomakesandownsyourwork.org.
As an insert in Geist Magazine and as artist book releases at various occasions.
More info, Who Makes and Owns your Work:
"Who owns the rights to artistic works in today's information based economy? How can one as artist and or producer of culture position oneself in relation to the existing regimes of copyright and the distribution of material and non-material products? How can we challenge the existing patterns of exclusion and turn our attention towards creative partnerships which are of benefit for all?"
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AS THE ACADEMY TURNS ENV.13
The starting point for AS THE ACADEMY TURNS env. 13:
was an incident that occurred at a conference on higher education, artistic research, at a Biennale in Spain a few years back. The student group from Konstfack, including myself, witnessed the event when we were there on a school trip, and the biennial and conference visit was part of an extended curriculum. The incident? A dramatic and sudden interruption in the conference discussions was made by a person, unclear who or why, when they marched up to the stage and emptied a large bin of trash on the panel speakers.
The incident gave rise to a series of debates and heated emotions, as
well as silences that were so extreme that they seemed almost strategic.
Why had it been done? And what about the method?
Was it a needed interruption in a closed space marked
by impenetrable language, bonds (power structures) and non-access?
Or was it an unacceptable and violent attack against an open and
democratic debate? “If you have something to say, why not just say
it with words?”
The project worked in several ways with the discussions around and after the incident, and with focus on the process of collectively building an interpretation and understanding of what had occurred and why. Eye-witness personal accounts of the “trash-pouring event” were collected, discussions in the aftermath of the trip were dramatized and made into script.
Live performances in the final exhibition took place both as something similar to a theatre/ rehearsal and performance and in a temporary installation; and as “interventionist” –type surprise appearances in the common areas of the exhibition space.
Printed scripts were present in the exhibition site for everyone to read before, during and after the performances.
Performed live and with documentation of rehearsals with
Jessica Blomkvist, Joanna Dahlgren, Mats Lindblom, Victor Molino Sanchez, Cecilia Runesson and Malin Toverud.
MORE
IMPRINT & CHERISH
kandidatutställning Konsthall C, 2007
