Input/Output

The main goal of Input / Output is to recycle media. Work by two young artists will be shown: Martijn Hendriks and Ryan Trecartin. Martijn Hendriks shows work from his series "This is Where we'll do it", in which he downloads videos from video site youtube, edits them and then uploads them back to youtube again. Young American artist Ryan Trecartin shows three works, which are mainly characterized by constant quotes from so-called ‘day-time television’: talk shows like Oprah Winfrey, Rosie O'Donell and countless others that are broadcast during daytime and are viewed by millions of Americans.

RYAN TRECARTIN films:

(Tommy-Chat Just E-mailed Me)

2006, 7:15 min, color, sound

Trecartin describes (Tommy-Chat Just E-mailed Me) as a "narrative video short that takes place inside and outside of an e-mail." Trecartin's intense visualization of electronic communication is inhabited by a cast of stylized characters: Pam, a Jewish lesbian librarian with a screaming baby in an ultra-modern hotel room; Tammy and Beth, who live in an apartment filled with installation art; and Tommy, who is seen in a secluded lake house in the woods. Pam, Tommy and Tammy are all played by Trecartin, who, wearing his signature make-up, jumps back and forth between male and female roles.

Totally self-absorbed and equipped with vestigial attention spans, the characters are constantly communicating with one another on the phone or online. Their e-mail exchanges and Internet searches are channeled into bright animations that intersect with the "real world" locations. The story moves from person to person like a browser surfing through Web pages. Engrossed in manic electronic interactions, the characters become increasingly isolated and solipsistic.



What's The Love Making Babies For

2003, 20 min, color, sound

Trecartin's extraordinary digital manipulations reach a new level as he speculates in vivid animation about reproduction, sexuality, and contemporary moralities. Collapsing footage appropriated from television, the Internet, and pop culture, Trecartin and his elaborately costumed collaborators manufacture an alien yet familiar reality. Inside this startling new video world, technophile gods wearing acid-washed denim argue about the future of gender and produce cryptic TV commercials. In a surreal backyard town meeting, characters deliver disjointed polemics assembled from clashing phrases that could have originated in ad campaigns, instant messaging conversations, or twisted episodes of syndicated science fiction. Constructed from the raw material of disposable media clichés and fads, Trecartin's narrative leaves us to answer the riddles he poses.



Yo A Romantic Comedy

2002, 12 min, color, sound

In Yo A Romantic Comedy, Trecartin borrows clichés from hip-hop culture and genre films to craft a dark, dream-like narrative that veers from comic melodrama to goth fantasy. Applying his signature digital editing and delirious sound processing to remarkable effect, Trecartin creates an alternative narrative universe that suggests a kind of psychodramatic hyper-reality.


Martijn Hendriks:

This is where we'll do it #5, #6 (2008) & #7 (2010)
This is where we'll do it is a series of Youtube videos from which the performing people have been digitally erased. Nothing happens, but there are still traces of what was erased.