04 Dec 2013

Annabelle Craven-Jones at Cruise & Callas, Berlin

Annabelle Craven-Jones is inviting to her L I V E X P E R I M E N T # 7/13 for Schematic for Neurotic Structures (Triangulation) on December 6, 2013 at 2 pm at Cruise & Callas, Berlin.

Rather than mimicking the interface and aesthetics of the cyber world and negating its effect, Annabelle Craven-Jones' takes her effect to the 100th degree. For her second solo show at Cruise & Callas Craven-Jones translates how we can make sense of new multiple identities. She invites the viewer to look at how we engage in the cyber world through her psychologically provocative triangulation.

Post-human (1) identities position themselves between the virtual screen and the analogue mirror in the exhibition entitled „Schematic for Neurotic Structures (Triangulation)'. Polyphonic representations of the self are positioned within a psychological diagram. These representations are encountered, drawn, recorded and reflected. The gallery's interior surface including its walls and floor is linked together by neon yellow tape. The artist maps visible sections belonging to the idealized self, neurosis, and self-realization, creating a three part triangular diagram. Vinyl lettering, quoting psychoanalytical terms that have been coined by the German Neo-Freudian Karen Horney, have been applied to the floor and the windowpanes looking into the gallery. A diagram on the floor is repeated with grey tape on the walls extending the limits of the gallery's architecture. Typical for Craven-Jones this triangulation serves as a model based on structure and time to present theories of the self.

Sections of this diagram are exemplified within each of the exhibited works. Central to the exhibition is an analogue structure of three mirrors held together by magnets in the shape of a triangle which contains a small digital web camera. The reflections produce an endless landscape and casually allude to the idealized self. Another of these structures is located in the artist's studio in Bristol. For the length of this exhibition Annabelle Craven-Jones will conduct live experiments from within the structure in her studio on Thursdays at 5 pm and on Saturdays at 2 pm, taking control of the aspects of the self-reflectivity of artistic production and our reception of it. The experiments can be seen via live stream over Skype on the large screen monitor leaned on a gallery wall. The studio and gallery will enter a Skype-conversation. The live stream presents the neurotic self, a distorted way of looking at oneself. The Skype footage will be edited weekly and played on a monitor as an external form of self-realization. The actualized self is produced and film footage will continuously be added. Parallel to the live stream, a spoken text of a pseudo self-help guide will be heard, thereby audibly hacking into the viewer's consciousness. The digital voice that speaks first in English and then in German will take the viewer through the process of an online stream of consciousness.

The absent body is materialized. The artist has drawn lines around her own body while lying on a long sheet of paper. An indirect homage to Bruce Nauman, Craven-Jones becomes both subject and object while investigating the possibilities of projection and the boundaries separating the real from the imagined. The edges of the bodily outline are burned at three points while the finger tips are colored in flesh tones from pigment found in make up foundation. The two-fold visualization of the body is hung over a fluorescent acrylic rod suspended from the ceiling. Craven-Jones documents her self-realized act into a looped film, which can be viewed from the screen of an iPod.

Over the years literally developing her own language through the use of surveillance video and live streams, Craven-Jones helps us to make sense of our hyper-presence online and the jetlag we feel offline. We live in the immanent here yet Skype demands an exhaustive copresence. How can triangularization contribute to the ever-increasing signification of subject formation?

Annabelle Craven-Jones born 1977 in Gloucestershire received her MA in Fine Art Sculpture from the Wimbledon School of Art London and most recently completed a Foundation Course in Art Psychotherapy at University of Roehampton London. Craven-Jones' practice draws attention to the transforming post-human element between physical and digital interface. Permeating while simultaneously reflecting activities from our daily lives, Craven-Jones creatively presents how mediated identities are a part of a larger circle of bodily, technological, and cultural systems. (Annabelle von Girsewald)

______________________________
(1) For further discussion of post humanism and off line jetlag see 'The Post Human' by Rosi Braidotti, 2013.