Korporal Zoo

Reynard the Fox

Reynard the Fox

Highlights, Installations, Korporal Zoo, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos, Works

Korporal Zoo X: “Reynard the Fox”. Video installation with 12 triangular canvases (digital prints with manual intervention), and a video projection playing with all elements.

Reynard (Dutch: Reinaert; French: Renard; German: Reineke or Reinicke; Latin: Renartus) is the main character in a literary cycle of allegorical Dutch, English, French and German fables. Those stories are largely concerned with Reynard, an anthropomorphic red fox and trickster figure. His adventures usually involve him deceiving other anthropomorphic animals for his own advantage or trying to avoid retaliations from them. (from Wikipedia)

The work is based on the 13th Century Middle Dutch version of the story: “Van den vos Reynaerde” (About the Fox Reynard).
The 12 triangular canvases represent 12 animal portraits, some of them major enemies and victims of Reynard. The fox himself appears in various scenes of the video, which is projected in a central space, surrounded by the canvases.
The triangle is an important feature of the video, it refers to the triangular form of the fox’s head, and is fundamental to the narrative structure as well. Each of the three main scenes is introduced by throwing a triangular dice, the result seeming to determine what will happen. The surfaces of the dice become the setting in which the story takes place, while moving lines emerge from the sides and angles, covering and connecting the surrounding canvases. The dice results are 3, 6 and 7, highly symbolic numbers which form the starting point for each of the three chosen parts of the story.

The installation is the tenth work in the Korporal Zoo project: a series of videos dealing with the relationship between animals and human beings, studied from cultural, social and environmental points of view.

photo by Dietrich Graf

photo by Dietrich Graf

First presentation of the work: Exhibition DIE NEUEN 1 in the VBK gallery, 03.02.-18.02.2018, opening 02.02.2018 – read all info.

Screenings of the video documentary:
• February 23, 2023: Screening of 12 videos by Maria Korporal in the context of Premio Borgo Video, curated by gallery La scala d’oro, Sala Dionigi (Chiesa Valdese), Rome, Italy.
• September 21, 2019: Domino Dominio | Per gioco e per davvero, Macro Asilo, Rome.

title: Reynard the Fox
technical description: Video installation with 12 triangular canvases, digital prints with manual intervention, and a video-mapping projection playing with all elements.
size and materials: The size of the whole installation is variable, it can be recomposed and adapted to a room or an environment. The work consists of 7 triangular canvases of 30x30x30 cm and 5 of 40x40x40 cm, a video projector and 2 small speakers. The entire surface (projection and canvases) is about 240×180 cm.
length of video: 7’30” in loop
year: 2018
background sound: “Village Morning” by dobroide
music: “The Screaming Jungle” (excerpt) by Fearless Super Pictures
and “The Labyrinth” (excerpt) by The New York Underground Orchestra, conducted by Assif Tsahar
all other art work, recordings, camera, image & sound processing, animation & montage: Maria Korporal

Korporal Zoo: the project

Korporal Zoo, Recent Works & Highlights, Videos

“Korporal Zoo” is a series of video works by Maria Korporal, which observe the animal and human world with several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental. The project is a work in progress started in 2010. The videos in “Korporal Zoo” have been designed with a wide variety of techniques and each work is an animated mixture of photo and film footage, as well as drawings and collages.

Some studio views:

The works in the project:

The Waltz

The Waltz

Highlights, Korporal Zoo

The Waltz tells a brief history of women’s emancipation.
In the video appear birds flying freely, and a couple of women closed in a cage, who dance an endless waltz. At the end they manage to liberate themselves and the image of the cage is replaced by a rapid sequence of photographs of women’s protests from different times and places.

“Never forget that it only takes one political, economic or religious crisis for women’s rights to be put in jeopardy. Those rights are never to be taken for granted; you must remain vigilant throughout your life.”
Simone de Beauvoir

The history of women’s emancipation is still in full swing. To be born a girl means to fight all your life. I firmly believe in the solidarity between women and my motto is therefore: “Keep on waltzing, sisters!”

The video has been shown in numerous festivals.

The video is part of the project Korporal Zoo, a series of short movies which deal with the relationship between animals and human beings studied from several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental.

title: The Waltz
technique: Experimental video and animation
length:  3’11”
year: 2010
© Maria Korporal

Stay or fly away?

Highlights, Korporal Zoo, Videos, ,

One of the most neglected aspects about refugees is that they are in a situation of emergency in which they have to take a decision immediately, and whatever they decide, there is no turning back. Just as the butterfly in this video: “Fourteen seconds to decide, will you stay or fly away?” Whether the butterfly decides to stay or to fly, the circle closes anyway and takes away any possibility to go back on the tracks.

The video is part of the project Korporal Zoo, a series of video works by Maria Korporal, which observe the animal and human world with several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental.

Screenings:
NEW: • June 28-30, 2024: 48 Stunden Neukölln, Berlin. Exhibition STILLEN with the artists’ collective FEMMESPHERES at the Kulturkirche nikodemus. Maria Korporal shows her new AR-project The Silent Voices of the Inner City and her video Stay or fly away?
Previous:
– WOW.18/USA, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles/CA 2018
– Kunst im Dialog, Video night LITVAI gallery for photography, Landshut (Germany) 2018
– Maria Korporal: 6x5video – video art exhibition in Studio TiEpolo38, Roma 2018
– Strangloscope Festival, Brazil 2017
– VisualcontainerTV “Game Over”, 2017
– WOW.01/Kochi Muziris Biennale, India 2017
– Global Videos, around the earth 2016
– Festival Miden, Kalamata 2016
– Unabhängiges Medienfestival Tübingen 2015

title: Stay or fly away?
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 0’49”
year: 2015
visual and sound: Maria Korporal

Give us back our shadows

Give us back our shadows

Highlights, Korporal Zoo, Videos

Recent screening: December 14, 2024: Sunset Screening & Performance, Bootshaus on Spreeuferweg, Berlin.

What happens when the sun shines behind a vast curtain of smog? Our shadows become vaguer and when the smog becomes thicker, they may not be visible at all. With the growing air pollution, the sunlight becomes less – it is the darkening of the earth, also called “global dimming” – and we are losing our shadows.
An old Native American legend tells that an insect stole the shadow to those who did not respect nature. Deprived, in this way, of their soul, the men became ill. Only with music and singing they were able to finally get their shadow back and live happily ever after.
The motto “Give us back our shadows!” is the wish that we can clean the air, so that the sun can enlighten us again and we get our shadows back.

“Korporal Zoo” is a series of video works by Maria Korporal, which observe the animal and human world with several perspectives: cultural, social, environmental.

title: Give us back our shadows
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 6’46”
year: 2014
music: Richard Strauss, “Also sprach Zarathustra” – Das Tanzlied (public domain – www.1classical.com)
field recording of insects: Benboncan (www.freesound.org)
all other recordings, camera work, cast, image & sound processing, animation & montage: Maria Korporal

Nevermore

Nevermore

Highlights, Korporal Zoo, Videos,

New screenings:
• October 26, 2023: MADATAC 12, screening of the videoart project “Art for Freedom” curated by Irina Gabiani, Sala Berlanga Cinema, Madrid.
• December 9-31, 2022: Good News, winter exhibition, Galerie VBK Berlin.
• 2022-2023: Miami New Media Festival, several venues.

Why do humans do themselves harm? Why do they destroy the nature they are part of?
These are the questions that the artist, as part of humankind, asks herself, through a variety of expressive spaces and languages including performances, fragments of historical films and animated drawings on paper. The uncertainty that marks mankind’s destiny finds an echo in the call of the crows: their “cras, cras!” means “tomorrow, tomorrow!” in Latin. These cries may signify indecision and the eternal postponement of choice, but also the will to work for a better future. The whispers of “nevermore” pronounced by the artist and transformed into voices both feminine and masculine act like a promise sealed with a kiss – a promise that takes wing and is carried off by the wind.

technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 10’27”
year: 2012
historical film fragments: excerpts from “The Air Force Story” (1953, public domain)
field recording of frogs & toads: Benboncan
field recording of crows: Jim Blodget
all other recordings, camera work, cast, image & sound processing, animation & montage: Maria Korporal

The night of harmony

The night of harmony

Highlights, Korporal Zoo, Video Poetry, Videos, ,

“The night of harmony”, a film by Maria Korporal on a poem by Marcia Theophilo.

The night of harmony

In the forest exist
more eyes than leaves
more hearts than stones
it’s the night of harmony
just one night – one night a year
and you never know which one it will be
the hearts of all the animals
light up bright
the bodies disappear
and as many lights wander in the woods
as stars in the sky
it’s the night of harmony
they don’t devour each other
nor do they know each other
the jaguar and the tapir meet
the crocodile and the pirarucu
the toucan and the anaconda
the butterfly and the iguana
the falcon king and the macaque
it’s the night of harmony
just for one night
in the forest exist
more eyes than leaves
more hearts than stones.

The poem has been published in the book “Amazzonia sempre”, ed. Cooperativa Darwin > website

title: The night of harmony
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 8’53”
year: 2012
images, animation and sound: Maria Korporal
poem: Marcia Theophilo
recording background sound: dobroide

Dust Thou Art @ MADATAC, Madrid

Exhibitions and Events in 2018, News

“Dust Thou Art“, a recent video by Maria Korporal, has been selected for the festival MADATAC in Madrid, Spain – Sección Oficial Internacional Competitiva. The video will be screened on Tuesday 16th of January 2018 at the Salón de Actos de Conde Duque in Madrid.

Click here for the catalogue and program on Issuu, or below:


MADATAC 09
Interactivo / Exteractivo

MADATAC, Muestra Internacional de Arte Digital Audiovisual y Tecnologías Acontemporáneas, llega a su novena edición habiéndose establecido como un referente nacional destacado en la promoción de la cultura digital y arte experimental.

Desde el 10 hasta el 30 de enero, Madrid se convertirá en un hervidero de videoarte y nuevos medios en varias sedes de la ciudad. Concretamente, el Centro Cultural Conde Duque reunirá, a lo largo de varias sesiones del 16 al 20 de enero, una selección de trabajos de más de un centenar de videoartistas de 50 nacionalidades distintas, que sin duda se enmarcan entre las creaciones más vanguardistas, originales y poéticas del panorama actual de arte audiovisual. Todo ello a través de proyecciones, conferencias, instalaciones y conciertos audiovisuales de importantes figuras del mundo del arte electrónico de los nuevos medios.

Esta edición, que lleva por título “Interactivo / Exteractivo” presenta un acercamiento interactivo a las posibilidades del nuevo arte audiovisual mediante la visualización de videocreaciones e instalaciones donde la realidad virtual se nos presenta como una posible vía para reinventar las artes digitales y explorar la espacialidad que nos rodea en forma de experiencias artísticas que plantean transformar y redimir nuestra conciencia sobre los límites de la propia realidad.

Desde una perspectiva interdisciplinar, y fusionando el mundo de la técnica con el de la imaginación, MADATAC desafía las narrativas cinemáticas convencionales ofreciendo un arte audiovisual transformador en una apuesta por el riesgo y la belleza. Por la Muestra han pasado personalidades como Roy Ascott, Román Gubern, Lech Majewski, Mabel Palacín, Reynold Reynolds, Bernd Lintermann o Brian Eno, entre tantos otros, y a ella están vinculadas figuras como Bill Viola, así como lo ha estado Abbas Kiarostami. MADATAC difunde el arte de los nuevos medios y el videoarte más inédito, inclasificable y visionario, aquel que propicia el arte de ver lo inadvertido.

Source of this article: condeduquemadrid.es/actividades/cine/madatac/

Stay or fly away? @ Strangloscope Festival Brazil

News

“Stay or fly away?”, a video from the Korporal Zoo project, will be screened in the Strangloscope Festival in Florianopolis, Brazil, as part of the program “Switching territories” curated by Visualcontainer.

STRANGLOSCOPE experimental Video/Film, Audio, Performance International Festival
8 – 13 November 2017
Florianopolis, Santa Caterina – Brazil

9 November – Switching territories: from the land to the mind
Visualcontainer Selection

Artists: Matteo Pasin – Sonia Laura Armaniaco – Daniela di Maro – Eleonora Roaro – Barbara Brugola – Maria Korporal – Patrizia Bonardi – Enrico Bressan – Armida Gandini – Riccardo Muroni – Cristobal Catalan – Elisabetta di Sopra

Switching territories: from the land to the mind
Space and territory have always been subjects to human measurement, tied to the body, the flow of time and memory.
Stratifications of places and territories mingle with the personal notation of space and personal perception of the territory itself through our stories, memories and impressions.

The body measures space and mind does the same, from the global view from above to complexity, personal mental mapping, to the perception of the natural boundary and the concept of “moving” both physical and mental, through a further mapping of possible adaptation strategies.
From places caressed by the gaze and lived as intimate and habitual spaces to other spaces that evolve and turn into becoming hostile.
The mental territory and the desire to blend with it. The territory that eventually becomes the extension of one’s body.
Alessandra Arno’

The selection presented is intended to provide a further mapping of the possible impressions that the territory suggests, through the visual research of several artists who experience the formal potentialities and the different languages of video art.

Videoart Selection:

Matteo Pasin – Weltanschauung – Il mondo come volontà di rappresentazione, 5:50, 2016
Sonia Laura Armaniaco – Gaia, 3:50, 2016
Daniela di Maro – Migrations, 5:13, 2011
Eleonora Roaro – 00:00:01:00, 1:00, 2016
Barbara Brugola – Lapse of View – 3:15, 2012
Maria Korporal – Stay or fly away?, 0:50, 2015
Patrizia Bonardi – The immobility of tree, 3:11, 2012
Enrico Bressan – Exercise#49, 3:25, 2010
Armida Gandini – Muovo sonnambula al mondo, 2:00, 2012
Riccardo Muroni – 010, 11:11, 2015
Cristobal Catalan – Res Nullius, 3:46, 2014
Elisabetta di sopra – Temporary, 5:00, 2013

Strangloscope – Experimental Video/Film, Audio, Performance International Festival is the first international festival devoted to the experimental arts field in Florianópolis, Brasil. Its first edition happened in July 18th 2014 and there were another 3 screenings in the same year.
Strangloscope’s goal is to achieve at least 4 editions per year. The festival attracts filmmakers from around the world to participate in screenings, live performances, exhibitions and artist’s discussions.
All the Works are selected by Duo Strangloscope but there is one special edition every year that is a mix program curated by Duo Strangloscope and an invited program of an international festival. In 2014 Fest Miden shared a program screened over the Florianópolis dunes at Strangloscope 4th edition called From Island to Island. In January,2015 a special programme prepared by Slovak film magazine KINEČKO opened the year activities with a very selective program focused on Czechoslovak experiments with film material and its structure.

Strangloscope provides local and regional audiences with an opportunity to view a wide variety of contemporary experimental works focused on artistic excellence.
Strangloscope is achieving national and international recognition due to the generous participation of great experimental artists such as Saul Levine, Steven Woloshen, Daniel Kötter,Guillaume Vallée, Gilivanka Kedzior & Barbara Friedman [Red Bind}, Tânia Dinis, Esther Urlus, Richard Ashrowan, Distruktor, Lau Focarazzo, Mary Helena Clark, Kate Ewald, Ralitsa Doncheva, Katerina Athanasopoulou, Lubomír Remo, Azucena Losana, Daniel Lima Santiago, Stephen Broomer, Kelly Gallagher, Nazli Dinçel, Mónica Savirión, Abigail Child…

Strangloscope – Experimental Video/Film, Audio, Performance International Festival is a non-profit organization sustained by the generous support of Duo Strangloscope and enthusiastic audiences.

www.strangloscope.com

Source of this article: www.visualcontainer.org/wordpress/en/visualcontainerstrangloscope-festival-brazil/

“Give us back our shadows” in Espacio Enter Canarias

News

“Give us back our shadows”, a video from the Korporal Zoo project, will be presented in Espacio Enter Canarias, as part of the videoart program “In Wonderland”, curated by Nikos Podias / Festival Miden.
Espacio Enter takes place in TEA (Tenerife Espacio de las Artes), Tenerife, Canarias, from 24 to 27 of August 2017.
• about Espacio Enter
• dedicated page to the program “In Wonderland”

Video Art Miden presents
“In Wonderland” [61 min] Curated by Nikos Podias

A land of wonders where ingrained rules have ceased to exist. A whole world which can simultaneously be dreamy and real, romantic and tough, beautiful and ugly. This is the land where butterflies have a human face, fear gets confused with charm, time can be stopped, mirrors distort our image, there is always a secret hidden in the woods, the beginning and the end tangle, cats fly high, excess is considered little, myths get involved with fairytales and good fights evil like a sensitive robot fights a giant octopus.

Yuliya Lanina, Theme and Variations, USA 2013, 10.28
Carla Chan, Black moves, Germany 2016, 2.35
Natalie Plaskura, Faint, Germany 2014, 5.58
Kirill Savateev, Д, Russia 2016, 2.17
Isabel Perez del Pulgar, Opus III Desespoir du singe, France 2015, 8.10
Rick Niebe, Mannequin, Italy 2016, 8.52
Mauricio Sanhueza, Nyan Cat (Psycho Cat), Peru 2015, 1.54
Daniel Moshel, MeTube 2: August Sings Carmina Burana, Austria 2016, 5.42
Maria Korporal, Give us back our shadows, Germany 2014, 6.46
Stephanie Winter, Tristes Deserts – A Robot’s Tale, Austria 2015, 8.18