"Everyone of us has an answer and in this way we bring with us our story, our language and our Freedom."
(Roland Barthes)

The art association gokart has made an open invitation to artists and experts of disciplines close to art to make a miniature-video on the theme "freimauern". These miniature-videos are presented in the form of a virtual exhibition that is a phenomenological interpretation of the construction and fall of a wall, analysed from diverse perspectives: ironical, metaphorical and using social criticism. Each monthly addition of a new miniature-video will bring with it a fresh artistic facet.

The abstraction of the wall and its fall leads to an analysis of the comparison between antinomies and the dualism that follows on from this. If there it is a wall, we will consequently also find a "here "and "there ", inclusion and exclusion, as well as a possible passage of boundaries. The passage and overcoming of a limit, of a boundary, presents itself as a synonym of freedom, standing for the achievement and preservation of the self, and counting as a basic prerequisite for liberty of thought and spirit.

Gabriela Oberkofler

"While searching for my native land, I climb various urban mountains in the city of Stuttgart and yodel at them."
(Gabriela Oberkofler)

Many years ago, Gabriela Oberkofler left her hometown, Jenesien, and moved to Stuttgart. The lack of habitual ambiance she experienced as the result of this move led the artist to an analysis of her own origin. By means of the confrontation with her own cultural belonging, the search for familiar pictures and experiences was evoked in her.
Component parts of the city such as fountains, architectural elements and rubbish heaps became mountains, which were climbed and yodelled at by the artist. In this way, the artist recreated familiar elements and thereby formulated her personal relationship with her own culture which she encountered at the same time both closely and at a distance. This element of ambivalence was responsible for something that seems to be characteristic of Gabriela OberkoflerÕs videos, namely a tendency towards the interaction between irony and seriousness.

Gabriela Oberkofler
Gipfelstürmen, 2008
Camera: Christoph Trendel
Length: 206 seconds
Courtesy of gokart

Christian Niccoli
Untitled # 1, 2009

...
(Christian Niccoli)

Using slow-motion, the video shows a young man's fall. The exact starting point and the exact end of the fall are not clear.
The falling is bedded in a lack of context which on one hand suggests absolute freedom and boundlessness but on the other hand instability and forlornness.
This absence of connections, which can substitute for a reinforced form of social autonomy, also becomes an expression of nihilism.
In this respect, the fact that the work purposely has no title creates a conflicting sort of freedom with which Christian Niccoli has endowed his video made with a highspeed camera.

Christian Niccoli
Untitled # 1, 2009
HD Hi-speed video, 2:50
Length: 154 seconds
Camera: Andreas Steffan
Technical assistance: Christoph Skofic
Cast: Christoph Steinicke
Music: Aritape
Produced with the kind support of: Autonomous Province of Bolzano - South Tyrol - German Culture; Weisscame Hispeed Technologies, Munich; City of Forst (Lausitz)
Courtesy of gokart

Martina Drechsel
Untitled, 2009

Come on comrades, mount your horses!
(Barbara Gamper)

In the photo sequence assembled as a video, the artist Martina Drechsel disguises her own body by means of a lacquer that becomes a deformed vessel of her personal corporeality. As a symbol of the masquerade and as a symbol of a flexible and transformable entity, it is precisely this vessel that directs our attention to what is inside. For a mask is not that which it represents but rather that which it transforms, i.e. purposely does not represent. Just like a myth, a mask also denies as much as it affirms. It does not only consist in what it says or intends to say, but also in what it excludes. (Claude Lévi-Strauss, "The Way of the Masks" 1977). Through disguising and concealing, the contents of the vessel and its identity remain a mystery to the observer. But by means of the silhouette of the corporeality, connotations arise which evoke an imagination of limited femininity. The body (naked in the vessel) moves between shameful lolling about in a hermetic space on one hand and pulsating beating to the rhythm of the music on the other. The choice of the music, being a burlesque intervention, appears to have the effect of counteracting the pathos. The photographic eye is an eye which the artist trusts fully and completely and in which she believes. For her, photography becomes the true manifestation of existence and of identity.

Martina Drechsel
Untitled, 2009
Photography: Teresa Drechsel
Duration: 79 seconds
Music: Musical band Mils b. Imst
Courtesy of gokart

Barbara Gamper
No-end (today yes, what about tomorrow?), 2009

"No-man's-land, emptiness, a space between. Every day the same. I wake up in this landscape. Next to the bed a flare. (Today yes, but what about tomorrow?). I hold the flare in the wind. I don't know how I know that I'll be taken away, but will be there again tomorrow. It seems as if a dream had become reality. I cannot be in this space for long."
(Barbara Gamper)

Where is a person when the feeling of cultural belonging is weakened more and more and a sense of powerlessness due to the loss of both geographical references and identity sets in? In her post-apocalyptical video miniature, Barbara Gamper shows a barren, surreal landscape which allows no identification due to the lack of details and characteristics and therefore seems to be nowhere and yet everywhere. This space between stands for a passage, which connects the virtual space with a seemingly existing space. Being lost in a social framework is reflected in the personification of a contemporary fugitive: a fugitive fleeing from the global movement and communication of today's society. This fugitive neither belongs to the social structure nor can he get away from it fully. His human presence experiences no real dimension, but rather a symbolic one and reinforces in the same way the feeling of being lost as well as the question of identity.

Barba Gamper
no-end (today yes, what about tomorrow?), 2009
Lost person: Marcus Woodcock
Duration: 100 seconds
Digital video
©Barbara Gamper
Courtesy of gokart

Kassian and Ulrich Troyer
Open, 2009

"fahren fahren fahren - zweitausendundeins - munich machine - boing boom tschak - aldi oder hofer"
(Kassian and Ulrich Troyer)

Ulrich and Kassian Troyer's road movie "Open" appears to be beyond time and space and yet seems to embody all time and all places. The minimalistic animation combines many opposites: the individuality of the sensation of driving and the anonymity of a landscape coincide on one hand with unlimited freedom and on the other with barriers. The apparent contradiction, which derives from an ephemeral changeability and at the same time from a continuity, finds its analogy in the sound, which emphasizes the narrative nature of the animation. The road movie itself becomes a binding element since it brings together the various locations of the two brothers by means of its conception and implementation. The conversations, which took place between Berlin and Vienna, evoked references to the world of music and films which sketch out the conception and the ensuing dialogues.

Kassian and Ulrich Troyer
Open, 2009
Duration: 90 seconds
Animation: Ulrich Troyer
Sound: Kassian Troyer
Courtesy of gokart

Heinz Mader
Heinzhenrikopf, 2007

"father son murderous father struggle old young high low tradition ignorance knowledge wisdom ignorance delicate aggression fear fun full force heads hit cry suffer hurt laugh like crazy tears on the face and further ow ow does that hurt fronts fall over with nonsense knock down walls rumpeldipumpel ahia ahiaaa hahahaha bang a pogo dance fight and new boundaries open spaces recovery protection for gladiators counter-pressure release joke-strategy intelligence."
(Heinz Mader)

Heinz Mayer's miniature-video is based on an unstaged comical situation, suggesting immediacy. The intimacy of the situation is underlined by the bad picture quality, suggesting and reminding us that a snapshot in time taken with a mobile phone doesn't submit to any director's rules. The situation seems to be coherent only when the artist fights playfully with his son, by throwing out words freed from any grammatical structure. This break from the norm is not only achieved at the linguistic level and with the technical repetition of "Heinzhenrikopf ", but also within the father-son relationship, in which prime position is given to an unconditional encounter devoid of rules.

Heinz Mader
Heinzhenrikopf, 2007
Video using mobile phone
Courtesy of gokart

Miniature-video artists from May to August:
Heinz Mader
Ulrich und Kassian Troyer
Barbara Gamper
Martina Drechsel

Curator:Martina Oberprantacher
Text: Martina Oberprantacher
Italian translation: Barbara Campaner, Stefania Saracino
English translation: Hilary Solly, Debora Bruns

Financial support:
Provincia autonoma di Bolzano, Dipartimento cultura