Rodney Place: Angels of Stealth

Thursday 24th April 2008 at 8 pm, Kibela - the opening of the exhibition

Rodney Place: Angels of Stealth

Rodney Place, the South African author that has lived in Europe for a number of years, in simple words transfers the constellations of external realities into the gallery interior. While doing that, he tells stories, aestheticizes traditional political divisions and integrates the use of contemporary information-communication technologies into the creation of a comprehensive platform of artistic creativity. He often refers to political reality or problematizes social issues and tries to establish the dialogue between the East and the West, The North and the South, the two genders, the age groups etc.

Angels of Stealth is conceived as a process similar to making a feature movie, with both “on location” and “studio” production/presentation. There are two basic spatial components in all the works produced and shown as Angels of Stealth. One is the documentary-like location on the third floor of the Europejski Hotel in Warsaw - corridors and rooms – that form the backdrop to the Web hotel chelsea-hotel-eastside.com, as well as the settings of individual works. The other is the “trans-studio”, a technological space between two video screens - a virtual hotel room for occupation and video/live performance in a formal idea we call “interfered with film”.

Each of the works in Angels of Stealth is first framed in terms of an occupant/artist who takes up residency of one of the rooms at the Web-hotel based on the Europejski, to develop a particular time-based work with the director. The proposition of these works is generally around the theme of East-meets-West in the formation of the new Europe. Through a process of “dialogue scripting”, multi-media works are produced based on the personal and professional experience/form of the occupant. The products of this occupancy are presented to both live and cyber audiences. In the second phase of individual occupancies each performer/resident will use the production/presentation mechanisms of the project to develop further works. The Website chelsea-hotel-eastside.com is legally designed for continuity as a co-operative.

The products of Angels of Stealth are prepared as live/video/installation performances, as well as video/installation 3D film - for presentation to specific audiences in different venues. Works are also prepared for cyber audiences, with chelsea-hotel-eastside.com as the virtual theatre/exhibition/shop space. Angels of Stealth will also commodify works for exhibition and sale, from photographs, CDs, DVDs, to fashion items and objects.

Each occupation/work in Angels of Stealth is conceived across a framework of production/presentation possibilities, local and international, virtual and real. In this matrix of connection, the technological space, or virtual hotel room, is designed as the mobile unit of the project. This so-called “magic box” is easily set up to produce and/or show a work in different situations/venues across Europe, through sales or co-production agreements.

The aim is for the project to reach self-sufficiency as a Foundation through the instrument of the Website and a long-term, copyrighted capitalizing scheme, and to include income for artists from sales of existing works, as well as reinvestment in the production of new works and research.

The exhibition will be on view until 10. 5. 2008.
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