samedi 1 septembre 2012

On the other hand / Vennestraat Project / Manifesta 9 Parallel Event

On the other hand
Two digital videos, colour, sound 8' PAL 16/9



(c) Meryll Hardt. OTOH Genoa / Genk 2012.


"On the other hand" finds its roots in a story that had been reported to me. The story of an Italian young woman who arrived in Genk (Limbourg - Belgium)  with her family in the mid-sixties while the first mine crises and the strikes were on the point to happen. A young woman who was spending a lot of time imagining that her sister - who stayed in Italy - was just behind the hedge of her garden. 

The project pictures two characters, one based in Genk and the other one based in the North part of Italy.
The first character is the young immigrant, living and working in Genk as a cleaning lady at C-mine, but also an operator of a shut cinema where some posters have turned yellow.
Actions take place in 2012 but it is not fully revealed, she rather appears like a pre-1968 character.
Such as the young woman of the original story, she is in connection with some disseminate marks of her native country.
She is juxtaposed to a double, her twin sister stayed in Liguria. 
Her routine face the melancholic tour trip of her sister.
This second character, the italian sister, is at the edge of the frame.

Between the camera eye and the focus, she is watching Italia, re-enacting memories, typical scenes and clichés (hitting the aesthetic a postal card off). A tour that takes the bedroom - and the view that a bed along an open window can offer - as its starting and ending point.


Co-curatoria Michela Saccheta & Fransceca Berardi
Vennestraat Hidden Places and Identities
Genk Manifesta 9 - Parallel event.


(!) the videos below are supposed to be played together side by side with head phones or another way to switch from soundtrack to another.




jeudi 7 juin 2012

Ligne Obscure at Ars Justitia





Performance at the opening of the new courthouse of Liège
Salle du tribunal de commerce.
18h40
Curated by Eric Therer.

samedi 5 mai 2012

Le voyage loin


 LE VOYAGE LOIN



Le Voyage Loin

first act in radio                                       at Radio Campus (Bruxelles) 
– Anvers exotique (soundscape)
– A life on the Ocean Waves
– Etoile Morte
– I can die Happy
– Lichtspiel
– La dérive d’Ophelia
– Genetic Catwalk

mardi 20 mars 2012

I can die happy




Can I die happy?


"I can die happy" is the result of a single improvisation on an instrumental version of "Love walked in" by George Gershiwn. 
Ignoring the song that Ira Gershwin later added to the composition for the"Goldwyn follies" (1937) , I took the freedom to create a new song on Georges Gerswhin's original composition, re-interpretated by Joe Loss and his orchestra in 1954.

Playing this instrumental from a found record collected in Bruxelles's streets has been the occasion to rethink the piece before its use by golden age  entertainement. It has been an elegant way to project myself in the historical context of its re-interpretation, 1954, in between Alain Turing suicide and atomic paranoia.

In last september, Gagarin Records gave this track the opportunity of a new embodiement via an Apolkalypso 7 inch.


 


 


One side: I can die happy (3:02)
Other side: Lichtspiel (3:50)

NOW AVALAIBLE ON GAGARIN RECORDS  








mercredi 15 février 2012

Yeah I'm still searchin'



Documentary essay 40'  
DV Pal 4/3
+ Book (19,5x13,5) 12 pages 
Non commercial use only / limited edition
Ecole de Recherche Graphique
Bruxelles 2011
(Diffusion : on demand at me.hardt@hotmail.com)

Thanks to : Guillaume Désange, Loraine Furter, Annik Leroy, Hannah Geise/Moemlien, Juliette Mélampyre, Jonathan Boutefeu for their support and participation.

Winner of Discovery price at 
FESTIVAL DU FILM SUR L'ART (ISELP Bruxelles 2012) 

















"Yeah I'm still searchin '" is a documentary essay taking as its starting point In search of the miraculous last aborted performance work of Bas Jan Ader, dutch conceptual romantic artist. As a quest of the metaphysic that led the artist to his loss, In search of the miraculous was a performative work splitted into three  "acts".

PART I consisted in a night walk in Los Angeles streets in the direction to the sea. It had been reported by photographies  taken by Mary Sue Ader (his wife) and had been exhibited successfuly at Claire Coppley Gallery. PART II consisted in the solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. known as a trained and experimented sailor, Bas Jan, unfortunatly never came back and was lost at sea, after several weeks of radio silence in between Cap Cop (U.S.A) and the british coasts.



In between his disappearance during summer 75' and the early 00' Bas Jan stayed more or less ignored by art circuits, not exhibited and presented and absolutly unknown from larger audiences. But in the early 2000, when his memory suddenly reappeared, Bas Jan inspired a lot of artists who gave tributes and tryed to walk in his shoes.

For my research, I questioned the issue of continuity and validity of a continuum, while considering the fact that the only existing documentary film existing on Bas Jan Ader, "Here is always somewhere else" (2008) had been directed  by Rene Daalder and co-produced by Aaron Ohlmann at the initiative of Mary Ader Sue Anderson, widow and former collaborator of Bas Jan. I got interest in the work of Bas Jan for his melancolic questionning of modernity, mocking at Mondrian and many other with the tone and elegance of Buster Keaton.



Bas Jan last aborded work, In search of the miraculous PART I  exhibition at Claire Coppley Gallery,  from which the postcard above had been the invitation (photo taken from another travel on sea) included two sets of photographs, referring a walk in the streets of Los Angeles, between dusk and dawn, in the direction of the beach.

Two sets of black and white prints on which the artist then wrote the lyrics of a popular song entitled "Searchin" performed  by the band The Costers.



The image above had been taken from this first part, it allowed me to enter the work of Bas Jan Ader in a positive way, by titling my work,  "Yeah I'm still searchin'."

The booklet coming with my documentary essay is to be taken as an attempt to think about this third part he never did. A rambling at night that was scheduled in Amsterdam after his Atlantic cross, echoing the first rambling, in Los Angeles streets.

My booklet  contains some photographs I took last September, two nights long, visiting Amsterdam with my friend Hannah Geise/Moemlien, Amsterdam based musician and fine artist.














For the exhibition of PART I "In search of the Miraculous" at Claire Coppley Gallery Los Angeles, a choir of students were asked to sing some sailor songs, including "A life on the Ocean Waves" written and composed by Henry Russel (1838), which also is the official hymn of the british navy.

I choised, for one sequence of my work to make a new cover of that track, with several voices of mine, like a choir, and to edit the track with Yuri Gagarin first flight in space footage, on April the 12th 1961. Yuri G. who unlike Bas Jan, came back from his solitary travel (in spite of some technical problems), with a now a day famous statment :"I see no God up there"



This video is the long cut version of an extract of one sequence of « Yeah I’m still searchin" which is not actually online, but visible on demand at meryll.hardt@gmail.com, for non commercial diffusion contexts such as seminars, free diffusions, school/research.