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SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCES, PARTS 1 & 2
"PARALLEL WORLDS OF SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCES, PART 2"
pictured with "OPERATION BLACK HAIR"
matelassé sculpture;
satin, cotton, and wool batting
109 L x 90 H x 0.4 W cm
2013
WHOLE AND DETAIL VIEWS
"PARALLEL WORLDS OF SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCES, PART 1"
velvet, custom-made buttons, foam,
cotton, and upholstery foam
74 L x 123 H x 8 W cm
2013
SIDE VIEW
DETAIL
"PARALLEL WORLDS OF SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCES, PART 1"
installed with
"THE UNCANNY" (FILM PROJECTION)
"THE UNCANNY," PROJECTION VIEW
"THE UNCANNY - MAXIM'S COVE"
(DE) ILLUSIONS OF APPEARANCE SERIES
2012
REMIX OF SAMPLE-BASED MEDIA:
VIDEO PROJECTION/ 60 SCREENSHOT PER SECOND, ANIMATED INTO MOVING IMAGES
BY REMOVING P-FRAMES FROM A COMPRESSED VIDEO FILE/ SAVED
AS A STANDARD H.264/ MPEG-4 VIDEO FILE
2 MIN, 0 SEC; COLOR, NO SOUND, LOOP
"THE UNCANNY - CONVERSATIONS WITH DOORS"
(DE) ILLUSIONS OF APPEARANCE SERIES
2012
REMIX OF SAMPLE-BASED MEDIA:
VIDEO PROJECTION/ 60 SCREENSHOT PER SECOND, ANIMATED INTO MOVING IMAGES
BY REMOVING P-FRAMES FROM A COMPRESSED VIDEO FILE/ SAVED
AS A STANDARD H.264/ MPEG-4 VIDEO FILE
2 MIN, 0 SEC; COLOR, NO SOUND, LOOP
"PARALLEL WORLDS OF SUPERFICIAL APPEARANCES, PART 2"
FACADES AND FETISHES SERIES
SATIN MATELASSÉ
2013
"Stemming from the VOMs, [this work stems] also from the absurd dimension that objects in general seem to take place in Tramaine’s work. I‘ve become concerned with their idea and function as fetishes. This concern comes from the impression these objects are giving me, of how much charged they are. Charged with a parallel existence - their parallel existence. We tend to give to fetishes only the dimension that is connected to sexuality, though besides this dimension, comes the religious one, and also what Marx described of the commercial object becoming a fetish, in capitalism. Whatever the aspect may be, fetishes are objects that have become charged and connected to something and through that they give a highly absurd feeling. The same takes place to Tramaine’s objects, as they become so much charged by the connotations and the parallelisms they bear, that at the end they become striped from everything else - even themselves. They become pure existences of the charge, in the form of appearances, facades, and fetishes.
“The argument is repeated in The Decorative Art of Today: 'The railway brought him wagon-loads full of delicate porcelain covered with roses as fine as the flowers themselves, with seashells, and leafy tendrils of the brightest gold. The peasant on the Danube was immediately dazzled, quite overcome, and lost faith in his folk culture: he let it drop like a load of bricks, wherever the railways reached – throughout the world ...
Later, the cinema would finish off the work of the railways. The peasant on the Danube has chosen. Folk culture no longer exists, only ornament on mass-produced junk everywhere!”^
42
“The house as a site of mysteries, secrets, and forbidden sections answers to the principle of what Freud has called the uncanny or unhomely (das Unheimliche) ... a form of the fearful that stems from the familiar. It is something secret or concealed that has become visible nevertheless. The Unheimliche, as it were, hides behind the Heimliche. Although the home encloses and thus gives comfort, it also encloses and hides secrets.^68^94 ... Situating his [Hitchcock] dramas in the safety of the intimate realm of the home, rather than in dungeons and the medieval ruins, the threat is more intense.”^95
2. ORDER TWO: To draw a fear in the familiar - the first requirement of staged authenticity - Hitchcock’s architecture of his spaces had to be convincing. How else could one tell a story to suspend disbelief if one’s ability to enchant the viewer into an staged world is appears to be, well, staged? To create a fear via monsters, haunted castles and ghosts is one way, but Hitchcock created a fear within the home, the interior world of his protagonists, and the outer world of shared experiences via tourism, national monuments and recognizable places. This is Hitchcock’s second order, reliant on the first.