cloudstomper: Research: Michal Rovner

researching art theory for my essay in a book called 'how artists think and work', came across a chapter about Michal Rovner.

A still showed what looked like abstracted bird like images. As I read further, with a sinking feeling, I read described in dense art-speak a video installation of large scale projections on 3 walls in a darkened room of birds in flight. The text describes the disorientating feeling along with the metaphors of birds, and the unnerving sound of having helicopters drone unseen but heard through the speakers.

I know there's nothing new, but it kind of makes you think, I'm not doing this to be original but I'm doing it because the idea came from being in a place at a time and I want to work from that experience.

Rovner is an Israeli artist. Something that gives a weight and legitimacy to her work, so yep using a helicopter. Deep. Growing up in Israel sure that's a reality.

I've been adding audio of a 9 month old unborn baby's heart beat to my video work.

Ironic unreality to that.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it

...

Anyway, i digress, looked up to see if I can enviously spy on this proper work with birds by a proper artist. Of course nil such luck but there was the you tube video clip below, furtively filmed by someone walking fairly soberly round the Pace exhibition. (getting more familiar with the names to linked with, Pace, Frith, Pippy Houldsworth, White Cube).

Shows some amazing videos that look banal enough at a quick glance. Then something catches you eye, 'am i imagining things' 'nope something just moved', looking more closely at the videos, what look like hieroglyphics or cuneiform is actually small stick figures walking across a page, what looks like a textured roughened factory concrete wall seems to have a exodus of anonymous black figures walking off to a non-existent horizon. They're blood brilliant to look at. A friend once spent about 2 hours looking at Jacques SOulages Black Paintings. I think I lost interest after about 15 minutes despite trying hard to be interested when I found out the artist dude hung out with Miles Davis. But these videos, god I reckon you could sit there for hours immersed trying to work things out and always see something new.

Just a shame the only reference to the video titled 'Mutual Interest' that I was looking for originally was only represented by an enlarged still from the film.