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TheCube Project Space
2F, No 13, Aly 1, Ln 136
Sec 4, Roosevelt Rd
Taipei, Taiwan map *
tel: +886 2 2368 9418
fax: +886 2 2368 9418
website
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The basis of UNGROUND is a collection of filmed images captured by Bouschet and Hilbert in London and Iceland between 2010 and 2014. The two have since woven the images of these two very different places and environments into a dialectic, visual narrative that juxtaposes modern urbanity with the forces of nature. Images in the former category focus on London's Financial District and its frenetic streams of professionals scuttling to and fro. Images in the latter focus on the concurrent eruption of an Icelandic volcano as well as on scenes of that country's glaciers and open landscapes. Black-and-white images capture the spasmodic convulsions inherent to our global economy while highlighting the underlying conflict between the human and the natural environment as well as the implications of this conflict. The exhibition's side-by-side examination of this epic conflict dialectically dissects, and bears witness to, humanity's unrestrained exploitation of planet earth and our ultimate, collective fate.
The 2010 eruption of the Eyjafjöll volcano beneath an Icelandic glacier sent a stream of ash into the atmosphere that effectively brought European air transportation to a standstill. Nature's continuing ability to create unchecked impact on humanity is a source of deep fascination and interest for both Bouschet and Hilbert. During filming, they splattered camera lenses with volcanic ash and dirty ice to create images marred by patchy areas of darkness and imperfect vision. Bouschet describes UNGROUND as "a piece about the profound crisis of perception we are going through." Through the lens of UNGROUND, the artists have constructed a metaphor for all of us to reevaluate the primal forces that determine both consciousness and reality.
The sound accompaniment to UNGROUND in Taipei was designed and produced by Stephen O'Malley.
