REBECCA LOYCHE

Selected Art Work 2008-2011

Meisterschlerin 2011
with Candice Breitz

Hochschule fr Bildende Knste Braunschweig Braunschweig, University of Fine Arts

The Art of Climate Change: Media Apparatus, Global Art Markets, Volcanic Ash, Icelands Banking Crisis by Sarah K. Stanley No one disputes that the production of contemporary art has become fully integrated with its media apparatus. Promoted by institutions, namely museums and sponsoring corporations such as banks, a complex media system is set into motion, including print media such as catalogs, books, magazines, combined with televised media, all of which is archived and transmitted via the Internet. All these entities assembled together control, organize and otherwise shape public taste and cultural discourse about Art. The artworks found at the fair are incidental. What is hidden beneath the informality of the art fair is a fairly large beast that requires vast financial resources to activate its full powers of cultural production. As immaterial as shifting weather patterns and climate change, the art apparatus is bound to fluctuating global financial markets, as unsettled by manmade disasters (war, banking fraud, social unrest) as natural ones (global warming, volcanic ash, earthquakes). The global art market rears its gigantic head as a prickly beast, growing spikes and abscesses of economic market turmoil, and it is this ravaged monkey that is segmented, ordered and placed for display at the art fair. Consequently, if the groups attending the fair were ever closely observed, captured on camera even, the expressions worn would range from utter distaste to total blankness, mingled with an occasional look of fascination (The Art Fair). The fair exists in a concentrated temporality, 4 or 5 days, compared with gallery shows that last a month and museum shows which last several months to a year. It is therefore dependent upon factors of time, such as quick financial transactions, rapidly assembled architectural venues and prompt transport of people and artworks to the site. The freight shipment of artworks to the fair means that it actually functions mostly as a temporary storage facility. This is confirmed by the fact that several international art fairs are set up close by or even held inside airport hangers. There are comparisons to be made between the long white corridors and series of passageways that define the architecture of airports and those of art fairs. The art fair shares the anonymity of transitory sites like airports, but also big-box supermarkets and blockbuster movie theaters; it offers a greater variety of consumer choices, yet somehow produce a diminished sense of connection to actual places and other people.

How does this all compare with the fluttering, soft quality of riding a bicycle along the canals, rivers, lakes and parks in the city of Berlin? Life is not for sale at an art fair, yet what then exactly is offered that produces its enormous allure? The art fair involves the folding and unfolding of tent-like structures, walls often made with ordinary wallboard, the cheapest of building materials, an event similar to the rock concert or fashion show. Art and its markets produce a similar condition that combines the thrill of shopping with an intensified sociality of branded display and entertainments. Just like a display window, consuming could mean just looking or it could mean buying, yet international art fairs cater to VIPs luxury tastes. Meanwhile, the fair itself is consuming great quantities of environmental resources due to its reliance upon transport of art freight and large international crowds to the venue. The Art of Climate Change: Commercial aviation is growing at a rate of five percent annually. Jet aircraft emissions are deposited directly into the upper atmosphere and therefore have a greater warming effect than automobile exhaust. The primary gas emitted by jet aircraft engines is carbon dioxide, which can survive in the atmosphere up to 100 years. The use of freight containers as gallery booths at Art Basel Miami completes the circle of art as transport. The Berlin gallerist Olaf Stuber once used his large wooden freight container as the display table at the Nada Fair Miami, which took up the bulk of his booth, a playful statement about art fairs as a moving and storage operation. This art is traveling, but the question is, have its conceptual elements been packed up for the journey? The pessimist would respond that the art fair steals from the artwork its powers of effect that depend upon an environment that facilitates relations between people, things and ideas. These include longer spans of time to wonder and wait to be moved or to feel a deep awareness of ones own creative emergence in the world. An optimist might say that artists have already incorporated the idea of travel into the work, that all artwork today is destined for frequent transport, and the white box of the art gallery had already provided a zone of abstraction early on. One momentous shift in the organization of art sales is that artworks have begun to be packaged into the new types of financial instruments, recalling the ones used to consolidate and sell large quantities of sub-prime home mortgage loans. Certain art dealers resist treating art as a pure commodity, claiming to worry that collectors will end up owning art that is not of the highest quality. The real reason for concern may be that

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it diminishes the importance of the art dealer in the sales transaction. The art fair is one step away from these financial instruments that package large groups of artworks for investment banking, and indeed each crammed cell of a gallery booth at an art fair could well be a materialized model of global art shares. Each square foot of the booth is priced according to the dots per inch of the media screen that electronically transports the contents of the container onto the worldwide web. If you want some examples of art activity that remains local and retains its powers of effect, it would likely not involve commercial galleries at an art fair. The art project MMX Open Art Venue, initiated by artist Rebecca Loyche in Berlin 2009-2010, is part of a long tradition of urban art spaces that emerge when a city is newly liberated from the constraints of a real estate driven market economy. It happened in New York City after white flight to the suburbs in the 1950s that left whole sections of central Manhattans industrial architecture vacant, which allowed artists and galleries to move in the 1970s. Art spaces opened in vacant buildings in Berlin in 1989 after the Wall fell, including the major art venue Kunst-Werke in Mitte. In recent years, real estate development has overtaken much of this area, driving more rebellious artist spaces and dealers out. The new shops that remain, like the ones in Manhattans Soho, feature trendy fashion and retail outlets with a superficial veneer of art and design. The Art of Financial Collapse: In March 2011, Icelands official investigation into the collapse of its financial system arrested Londons wealthiest property tycoons Robert Tchenguiz, Icelandic banks biggest borrower [1.37 billion BP], on charges of banking fraud. Kaupthing, one of the main three Icelandic banks that failed in October 2008, made business loans to the Tchenguiz brothers in property and retail through low wholesale interest rates that evaporated once the US sub-prime mortgage crisis blew up. Nothing can hinder the march of economic progress we are told, except natural disaster or total economic meltdown. These two catastrophes, natural and manmade, twist around the other like a coiled serpent of doom. Hannah Arendt, in her 1951 Origins of Totalitarianism and following Rosa Luxemburgs insight into the political structure of imperialism, emphasized that investment capital requires endless expansion in order to maintain its political stability, and depends upon total destruction of property -- the conquest of new territory is its only achievable aim. Seventy percent of Berlins residential housing was destroyed in allied bombings in the 1940s.

Now the rubble falls by the hand of the artist as she renovates a vacant building in Berlin, making art video in the process of creating an alternative art venue (Still Life) spirits stir again of those who had formerly lived amidst the rubble of the aftermath of the War. Whose vanities and writing desks were covered over as Soviet soldiers wrecked further revenge upon the German women left without defense or protection in Berlin? Total destruction. A single flower remains in a vase undisturbed, a small token of life that survives, a flicker of faith, the color of your beating heart. This art is not for sale. The Icelandic Grimsvotn Volcano erupted and ash thrown up into the atmosphere that disrupted commercial jet travel. The event allowed a comparative analysis of CO2 levels in the atmosphere, which gave a more accurate reading of emissions of commercial jet travel. The flight ban due to the volcanic eruption stopped emission of estimated 2.8m tonnes of CO2. There might be two figures given on the price sheets, the costs before and after transport to the art fair, and its contributions to global warming. True costs also lead to a discussion of value, how art is valued and for what reasons, and indeed what value(s) propel the global art market. If an earthquake happens or a handheld explosive device kills 50 people, its media broadcast potentially ricochets through the bones and marrow of artist intent upon making sense of senseless brutality. These translations between materiality and media prove that certain artists are capable of adding qualities of information into the mix of media images that global news outlets are unwilling or able to do. It is possible to forge connections between global catastrophe and the tactility produced from sign language performed at a protest in Iceland (Hvalreki). This is the necessary work of the artist, to produce media materialities that can still be felt at the tips of the fingers (Minds/Mines Dont Care), a communication that tests the boundaries between the actuality of corporeal worlds and the virtuality that contains its images and ideas. That which rides on the backs of whales and the floating corpses of polar bears, the earths fragile eco-system propels an art of weather systems, a patterning that produces invisible media that continues to be felt as magnetic fields.

~Sarah K. Stanley is a Berlin and London-based writer and media producer

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Minds/Mines Dont Care

Minds/Mines Dont Care is a series of photograms of I.E.D.s (Improvised Explosive Devices) and land mines. The photogram keeps the objects to scale and references the viewers physical presence. Simultaneously, the instant identification of what one sees has been reduced to a simple state. It invites the viewer to question what they are looking at. Current bombs are being made out of readily available materials, such as trash, cell phones, light bulbs, pens, water bottlesother items can be gathered with a quick trip to the hardware store. Similar to X-rays or early cyanotype photogram botany studies, these photos catalog the truth of the object. The X-ray quality plays with issues of paranoia and Homeland Security. In America, we are far removed from the realities of a suicide bomber, explosions in public spaces, and open land that has been embedded with mines. Contrasting elements of this work include the ideas of beauty, intrigue, fragility, mundane objects and the implied violence that is present in these weapons which link them to a maker. In the end, it is the human mind that is the biggest threat. The title derives from the U.S. military issuing country-specific land mine identification card packs. On the front of this pack is the iconic skull and cross bones with the slogan: Be Aware Mines Dont Care.

I.E.D. (Improvised Explosive Device) Water Bottle, Shrapnel with Walkie Talkie Detonator 2008/2009 Photogram, 50.8 61 cm Improvised Explosive Delay Device- Clock, Battery, Blasting cap 2009 Photogram, 50.8 61 cm

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Daisy Chain of Pipe bombs with self detonator, 2008 Photogram, 50.8 61 cm I.E.D. Booby trap detonator- Mousetrap, broken bulb, battery, 2009 Photogram, 50.8 61 cm

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Hvalreki

A 45-minute protest speech edited down to 4 minutes based on the tone of the speakers, the emotion of the sign language interpreter, and the crowds reaction. Spoken Icelandic and Icelandic Sign Language are recognized as two different languages, with approximately 320,000 people speaking Icelandic and 200 + people using Icelandic Sign as their primary language. The video is about the visual and audible ways in which communication occurs. To be deaf is to be unable to hear and to protest is also to raise awareness to those who do not hear. The word Hvalreki means stranded whale in Icelandic. A comparable English translation would be windfall . The irony of a stranded whale is a dying beast or food for a hungry village, bad and good can come at the same time.

Hvalreki, 2009 Video stills, Video installation

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SPOKEN ICELANDIC TO ENGLISH

Woman: Without pre-school teachers, midwives, teachers, and nurses, the economic situation does not matter. Let us redefine what is valuable and requires responsibility: Being responsible for children, education, the physical health of the nation, should all weigh more than being responsible for paper stock and money. Man: Where we are going to make the following demands: We want justice, elections scheduled, and the cliques done away with from the federal bank, the commercial banks and the Financial Supervisory Authority. We want fairness and the quota system eliminated, no more "golden parachutes", no more greed, no more nepotism, education and skills valued, we want togetherness and real solutions for people facing financial difficulties.. The removal of indexed loans, a new Nordic welfare system. Woman: Its complicated but its not that complicated that a whole committee of friends of friends have to sit around for a whole year and scratch their heads. Man: Both here at Austurvllur and around the world are thinking... and I'm going to ask you... Isn't it true what I said in the letter? Do we want the directors of the Federal Bank to leave? Do we want the directors of the Financial Supervisory Authority to leave? Do we want a different way to govern? Do we want the corrupting powers to leave? Do we want the government to leave? Do we want an election? Dear Geir (Prime Minister of Iceland).. You are going to get a letter this week. Woman: ... and are in a lot of debt. I would have gladly liked to have spent that money on myself. A new direction and new ways, break down the old party system.. and lets face it that it is outdated. Man: This week I heard Geir quoted saying, or if I heard him say it myself, I don't remember... He doesn't know what the people on Austurvllur are thinking. He's only human; we'll send him some q-tips. I wanted to ask you, I was thinking about writing him a letterDear Geir.. Read this letter carefully.. What we the people, Icelanders, both here at Austurvllur and around the world are thinking.... Woman: Prices are kept secret here. Imagine if the price of a carton of milk was kept secret or menus at restaurants didn't show their prices, then it would be up to the individual's business savvy, what kind of a price he/she would get. ~ Man from the crowd yells -- "Thats a good one!" Woman cont: Dear nation, lets harness the power that's in us. Lets get all the smart people involved. Lets connect with grassroots and make a new Iceland, where everyone can prosper. We are the nation and the power is ours!

ICELANDIC SIGN LANGUAGE TO ENGLISH

If no preschool teachers, midwives, teachers and lawyers economic situation no matter. We need to identify again economic what is in responsibility. Children, education, health of a nation, value better than responsibility paper, bond, money.
This meeting put forwards demands Ill read. We want rights, we want election decide time, cliques away from the Central bank, the banks, the FSA (Financial Supervisory Authority), away, away, away. We want righteousness, (fishing) quota system away, retirement pension for the members of parliament away, take things for yourself away, relation hiring away, education and abilities valued. We want solidarity, real solutions for people that cant pay. Away with the index. Nordic health system. Encourage all to go to Arnarholl 1. December clock 3. This is complicated, not very complicated one committee of friends sit in one year, scratch head, cant do. The whole world thinks today asking you, true Ill tell you. We want the board of the Central bank away, yes you, we want the board of the FSA away, yes, we want to change the leadership, yes, we want the corruption away, we want the government away, we want election, yes. Dear Geir, Ill send letter this week. Remember news I and everyone of you Iceland owes very much. I want to use this money myself. New direction, new way, the old parties tear down and throw away and see obsolete. I heard last week Geir Haarde, he didnt know people in Austurvollur were thinking, doesnt know you thinking today. He is a human being, we send him swabs, so can hear. I ask you, Im thinking of writing letter send to Geir, Dear Geir, please be kind to read this letter thoroughly. We people of Iceland .... Here ridiculous if secret about price. Imagine if secret what milk would cost or on a menu in a restaurant no price, then if clever business every one can decide what we pay. Dear nation, we need to encourage every thinking person together make a new Iceland, everybody feel better. We are a nation, we power.

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Circadian

Circadian offers the participant an otherworldly experience. Upon first entering the space, the visitor encounters a light-filled white room. The Circadian rhythm is the biological process of the human body to naturally function on a twenty-four-hour cycle. One of the strongest factors which alters this state is the abundance, or lack of, daylight. The 10,000 lux of full spectrum light in the room enhances the effects of sitting outside on a sunny day. The accompanying atmospheric soundscape is composed of several different audio layers of white noise, unidentified audio recordings from the oceans depths collected by researchers, other sound elements from nature and the human body, classical music and analogue audio players. The music is approximately 15 minutes in length and light therapy research has shown that this is the baseline amount of time people need to benefit from light exposure. The rhythmic and hypnotic sound in the room enhances the experience of this perceptual isolated solarium.

Circadian, 2011 Sound & Light Installation, Soundscape Rebecca Loyche~ Site-specific in Trier, Germany Circadian, 2010 Sound & Light Installation, Soundscape Bjork Viggosdottir~ Site-specific in Berlin, Germany

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Circadian, 2010/2011 Sound & Light Installation,Site-specific

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Still Life

The Still Life series records some of the memories of an old building that is undergoing renovation in the Mitte neighborhood of Berlin. A still life is set up each time a wall is going to be knocked down. Each still life is made from materials and other traces that have been left behind in the rooms of the house. The men knocking down the walls start on one side, and I stand on the other, filming the still life and protecting the camera from the falling debris. When watching the demolition it organically created a film set. The historical still life format of capturing slow decay became the medium to show rapid destruction. Original sound recordings have been edited to amplify the already existing ambient noises of the city going on right outside the windows of the house during the demolition. The life outside the window drowns out the life inside until everything settles once again.

Still Life, 2011 Video Stills~HD Video installation, Site-Specific Sound Mixing by Arthur Guidi

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Still Life, 2011 Video Stills~HD Video installation, Site-Specific

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The Art Fair

Double pleated suit, very stylish, classic. Customize tailored usually runs about 1,0002,000 Euros. Rigidness, self-conscious way of carrying oneself and totally shut off, hard to approach demeanor. Deep seated issues. Good posture, good shoes, physically fit. Doesnt stand out in the crowd, blends in and could get away quickly.

The Art Fair, 2011 Video Still, HD Video installation with 3 channel audio

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The Art Fair is a video installation with three different channels of audio. A video shot of an art fair is shown to three varying specialists in the fields of security, art, and psychology. Each specialist watches the same footage and gives his or her own distinct reading of the people walking by. Profiling is a natural part of human nature and is based on personal, or occupational, experience. The Art Fair is not just a forum for buying and selling work, but also a stage on which to spectate and expose trends. People come, looking to see the next big thing and scrutinize the work. At the same time, there is an air of Flneurism in the aisles of the art fair, where both the art and the person are on display. The video is shot in an inconspicuous manner so that individuals appear unselfconsciously in front of the camera as they walk down the runways of the fair. It is not always easy to match the voiceover with the individual being profiled, and the viewer begins to speculate and, in turn, starts to profile between the gaps and pauses in the narration. As the viewer scans the footage for characters, there is a contrast between the facile voyeuristic impulse of being influenced by someone elses input, and the default internal profiling system of the voyeur.

The Art Fair, 2011 Video Still, HD Video installation with 3 channel audio

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SCHTzEnFEST MEISTERSCHLER 2011

15. 10. 15. 11. 2011 Braunschweiger raumLABOR Hamburger Strae 267 38114 Braunschweig
AUSSTELLUnG / ExHIBITIOn Konzeption / Conception

Andreas Bee, Corinna Schnitt

Organisation / Organization

####################
CATALOGUE WRITERS

Elvia Pyburn-Wilk (Introduction text) Sarah K. Stanley (The Art of Climate Change: Media Apparatus, Global Art Markets, Volcanic Ash, Icelands Banking Crisis) Rebecca Loyche (All artwork synopsis)
PROOF-READInG

Pamela Cohn
GRAPHIC DESIGn

Rebecca Loyche
PHOTOGRAPHS

Rebecca Loyche & Jonathan Grger

PRODUCTIOn

Sigert ########### 2011 Autoren fr die abgebildeten Werke von Rebecca Loyche: beim Knstlerin / for the reproduced works by R. Loyche: the artist www.rebeccaloyche.com ISBn ################ Printed in Germany
Untersttzt von / Supported by

Rebecca Loyche is a 2010/2011 DAAD Scholarship recipient. Her studies at the Hbk have been made possible with this support.

Hier wird der Innenteil in den Umschlag geklebt

Diese Publikation erscheint anlsslich der Ausstellung / This book is published on the occasion of the exhibition