art

the METACURSE helmet

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the METACURSE helmet.

Nowadays Hong Kong can be perceived only through the prism of our nostalgic (or futuristic) fantasies about the city. This is the reduced reality of the METACURSE: the boundless prison we have built for ourselves out of ever flimsier digital copies of reality.


METACURSE is also the name for the helmet we designed to evoke this predicament. Projecting a hypnotising feedback loop, it confuses and complicates reality for both wearer and bystander.


Finally, we produced an experimental short film titled METACURSE, exploring the personal outward, then inward journey brought on by wearing the helmet.

At present, we are wearing the helmet, the digital gear of virtual reality. We hope that even this virtuality is virtual, in other words that we will no longer have to deal with it, but it is now in the process of annexing all possibilities for the moment, including the possibilities of art […]

– The Conspiracy of Art, Jean Baudrillard

METACURSE HELMET

  • materials: lasercut black acrylic sheet, iPhone X, Miroir M220 projector

  • year: 2023

  • designer & manufacturer: TypicalPlan

The METACURSE and its counterpart OFFCUT were produced for “Project Oi Kwan”. This project invited various artists to create work inspired by Oi Kwan Barbers, a traditional alley barber shop on Hong Kong island. The project was co-produced by Gallery In-between and Cheung Chau Wave and curated by Christina Brandt Jensen. Helmet, paintings and film were first shown during the In-progress event on Cheung Chau on 29–30/04/2023 and after that at After Sunset Festival in the iconic Fringe Club in Central Hong Kong (15–19/11/2023). See here for more info on this and other TypicalPlan exhibitions, workshops, lectures etc.

All in the Name of the Name

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at "ALL IN THE NAME OF THE NAME"

Les Rencontres d'Arles in co-production with Palais de Tokyo

As part of the annual photography festival Les Rencontres d’Arles, Hugo Vitrani curated the exhibition “All in the Name of the Name” (Au Nom du Nom). Located in the 17th century Sainte-Anne church in the centre of Arles, it offers a fascinating overview of the history of graffiti and urban culture through the works of around 40 artists. In the curator’s words, the exhibit “unfurls the negative film of graffiti, a revelation of what is stirring under the surface of urban life.” Read the full curatorial statement on the websites of Les Rencontres d’Arles or Palais de Tokyo.

“But graffiti emerges only to disappear, leaving behind traces and wounds, to quote Henri Michaux. The ultra-visible combines with the unspeakable—absence, belief, and complaint.”
— Hugo Vitrani, curator

Two photographs of Hans Leo Maes/TypicalPlan are included in the exhibition. The photos are stitched panoramas composed of the images of erased graffiti at Hong Kong tram stops as previously featured in the TypicalPlan book Nothing To See Here. (click images below to see full panorama)

At the far end of the church, in the choir space, these photos of erased protest graffiti are brought into dialogue with works by Sophie Calle and John Divola, among others. The exhibition further includes works by artists such as Gordon Matta-Clark, JR, Martha Cooper and Jamel Shabazz.

The exhibition is open to the public from 01/07–29/09/2024. It is co-produced by Palais de Tokyo and Les Rencontres d’Arles. Below are more images of the exhibition.

Check out more TypicalPlan exhibitions, lectures and other outings here.

FOUND SUBJECT (Tiled Compositions along a Catchwater Drain)

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FOUND SUBJECT

(Tiled Compositions along a Catchwater Drain)

The exhibition “FOUND SUBJECT (Tiled Compositions along a Catchwater Drain)”, curated by TypicalPlan and WildArtofHK, ran from 28-30 March 2024 at a secret (undisclosed) location in Hong Kong. This coincided with the annual appearance of the Art Basel circus in the city.


The exhibition featured the existing makeshift seats found alongside a catchwater, presumably made by residents of a nearby village. They are fashioned out of concrete, tiles and any other materials the carefree artisans could get their hands on. Despite their rather crude nature, some of them exude an unmistakable artistic quality.


(Besides some apparent embellishments, we are going to assume the makers were not too preoccupied with aesthetics. Otherwise this would just be an instance of Outsider Art we uncovered in the woods and this would rather undermine our argument below — every curation is inevitably a selective reading of reality.)


However, like Duchamp’s Fountain was not really about urinals, this exhibition is only marginally concerned with the aesthetic value of these undomesticated suprematist compositions. Rather, the exhibition “FOUND SUBJECT” seeks to use these odd objects as a gateway drug that leads us into a delirious meditation on the diminished role of the art-object within the art experience.

The art object: lost and found.

The invention of the “Objet Trouvé” (and the Conceptualism built on its foundations) still haunts our museums and galleries. Despite its name, the found object and its successor the readymade shifted the balance of power in art production and appreciation from the “made object” towards the “maker–subject”. In other words: from the artwork to the artist.

Duchamp’s copernican act of iconoclasm simultaneously banalised aesthetics and aestheticised banality (The Conspiracy of Art, Jean Baudrillard, p. 52). Within this flattened landscape, the self-evident nature of art as an exalted object has been lost. We need to rely on a life support system of museums, galleries and dedicated professionals to keep the illusion of art alive. In this context the figure of the artist has become essential. As the artworks themselves have become mute, they can only be understood through the prism of the artist’s intentions and motivations, personal histories and previous works.


As such the art object has turned into a mere representation or illustration of the artistic mind behind it. It has been relegated to the role of interface between the audience and the artist. The idea of the found object really started the era of the lost object: the disappearance of the artwork in favour of the artist.

Capitalism & Conceptualism.

The rise of conceptualism and the accompanying rise in stature of the artist have tracked the rise of capitalism. As a capitalist society we are in thrall to those who create value out of seemingly nothing. We worship the artists who turn the banal into meaning like we worship the investment banker, the bitcoin entrepreneur or the NFT-peddler. This strange alchemy speaks to the deep yearning in all of us who have been taught to live within the confines of the free market.


(The reproach that the art world is now driven by commerce is missing the point. The commerce IS the art. It is a symptom of the sublime stage of capitalism we are living in, where the object or commodity has become unimportant or invisible and only the creation of value is relevant, like in the casino-realities of the stockmarket or bitcoin trading.)


The artwork’s monetary value is not dependent on the significance of the object in itself but on the perceived market value of its maker; the object is just a symbolic representation of this value and so in itself irrelevant — often it languishes in a windowless art storage facility somewhere, like a gold bar in a vault. Investing in an artwork now resembles buying a company share in an artist: it has become a virtual, invisible object which only becomes actualised and visible in the moment of transaction.

Enchanted once again.

With the exhibition “FOUND SUBJECT” we re-centre the art object. By making an exhibition featuring existing objects whose authors remain unknown, we seek to prove that the world outside the global art market has more artistic merit than its self-appointed gatekeepers would want you to believe. If the idea of the found object put the spotlight on the artist-as-subject who magically transforms ordinary objects into valuable art, the exhibition “FOUND SUBJECT” aims to highlight how seemingly ordinary objects can still have a transformational impact on a subject, outside of museums, unbothered by artists.

As such it is a reversal of the principle of the found object that is given the kiss of life by the artist-subject; here it is the object that finds and animates the audience-subject, illuminating the viewer’s mind with explosive artistry. The object stops being a passive representation and regains the initiative. In this suddenly enchanted forest, the objects start speaking to us once again and the artists are nowhere to be seen. 

Excerpt from the invite to the exhibition.

This exhibition takes place at a secret location, contributing to the exclusive, high-profile nature of the event but also emphasising the fact that it is not about these specific objects as such. The exhibition only seeks to inspire the audience-as-subject to open its ears to the eloquence of ordinary objects and seek out poignant beauty in the ostensibly mundane reality.

The exhibition runs from 28 until 30 March, concurrently with Art Basel HK. It is to act as a tiny pinprick applied to the hot air balloon of the travelling art circus. As our exhibit is charging up our daily surroundings with potential artistic energy, one may find that it is simultaneously sucking all the hot air out of Art Basel and related events, following the principle of communicating vessels. Please contact the relevant organisers for refunds.

Opening event.

At the opening of the exhibition (attended by nobody) the basic paraphernalia indispensable to a successful art reception (cheese + wine) were transubstantiated into sacrificial offerings to whichever forest-dwelling deity is in charge of anointing artworks, eliminating the need for any middlemen in the form of the pesky art crowd with their shrill voices, perspiring foreheads and witless banter.

Simultaneously a sign marking the official opening of the event was revealed in situ. This sign was meticulously handcrafted through a process of what we call “negative stencilling”, a procedure that relies on locally wiping the grime off the existing tilework using a stencil template, cotton buds and lemon juice. As such this sign embodies the conceptual idea behind the exhibition “FOUND SUBJECT”: art potentially underlies all of reality and can be uncovered as long as we apply the mild acids of a sharp eye and a critical mind to it (yes, the curators still have a hangover from the reception and as such their metaphors do not quite hang together).

the METACURSE short film

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the METACURSE short film.

Nowadays Hong Kong can be perceived only through the prism of our nostalgic (or futuristic) fantasies about the city. This is the reduced reality of the METACURSE: the boundless prison we have built for ourselves out of ever flimsier digital copies of reality.


METACURSE is also the name for the helmet we designed to evoke this predicament. Projecting a hypnotising feedback loop, it confuses and complicates reality for both wearer and bystander.


Finally, we produced an experimental short film titled METACURSE, exploring the personal outward, then inward journey brought on by wearing the helmet.

Awards

  • Official Selection for the Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival 2024

  • Best Experimental Film at the Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival 2024

  • Recipient of the Tarkovski Grant in 2024

Screenings

  • Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival 2024, 10/07/2024 at Emperor Cinemas, Entertainment Building, Central, Hong Kong

  • Moving Cinema, 08/06/2024 at Chez Trente, Central, Hong Kong

  • Night of Obsession at After Sunset Festival, 17/11/2023 at Fringe Club, Central, Hong Kong (Official Premiere with performance by TypicalPlan)

  • In-progress, 29/04/2023 at Cheung Chau Island, Hong Kong (Preview Screening with performance by TypicalPlan)

METACURSE SHORT FILM

  • year: 2023

  • length: 10’40”

  • language: English (subtitles in English and Traditional Chinese)

  • director & producer: TypicalPlan/Hans Leo Maes

  • concept & scenario: TypicalPlan/Hans Leo Maes

  • cast: Hans Leo Maes, Mark Lau

  • cinematography & camera: Bradley Aaron

  • sound design: Seb StJean

  • translation (subtitles): Hei-man Cheung

The METACURSE and its counterpart OFFCUT were produced for “Project Oi Kwan”. This project invited various artists to create work inspired by Oi Kwan Barbers, a traditional alley barber shop on Hong Kong island. The project was co-produced by Gallery In-between and Cheung Chau Wave and curated by Christina Brandt Jensen. Helmet, paintings and film were first shown during the In-progress event on Cheung Chau on 29–30/04/2023 and after that at After Sunset Festival in the iconic Fringe Club in Central Hong Kong (15–19/11/2023). Both screenings were accompanied by a performance by TypicalPlan. See here for more info on this and other TypicalPlan exhibitions, workshops, lectures etc.

OFFCUT

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“OFFCUT” is the flip-side of the METACURSE-project, inspired by the leftover pieces of black acrylic — like the cut hairs left on the barbershop floor.

As the artist has become just another commodity producer, maybe real art lies hidden in the subconscious byproducts of the artistic process, the rejects and leftovers.

(An alternative art history: one composed of only the garbage found in artists’ dustbins)

The precise laser-cut shapes form the basis for freehand paintings. This adds the human touch so valued by the market, while the relative ineptitude of the artist simultaneously represents a critique and rejection of the creeping professionalisation of the art world.

“OFFCUT”是 METACURSE 項目的反創作，靈感來自黑色亞克力的剩餘碎片——就像理髮店地板上的髮碎。

當藝術家淪為商品生產商，也許真正的藝術只存活於過程中遺留下來的副產品、廢料及殘骸。

（另類藝術史：僅由藝術家垃圾箱中的垃圾組成）

精確的激光切割形狀乃手繪的靈感。 粗劣的畫工既增加了市場所崇尚的人情味，亦代表着對藝術界逐漸變態的批判和控訴。

  • materials: canvas (2x 600x900mm, 1x 300x200mm), acrylic paint, varnish (matte and high gloss)

  • year: 2023

  • painter: TypicalPlan

OFFCUT and its counterpart METACURSE (both the helmet and short film) were produced for “Project Oi Kwan”. This project invited various artists to create work inspired by Oi Kwan Barbers, a traditional alley barber shop on Hong Kong island. The project was co-produced by Gallery In-between and Cheung Chau Wave and curated by Christina Brandt Jensen. A first preview of the works was presented during the In-progress event on Cheung Chau on 29-30/04/2023. The final exhibition took place during After Sunset Festival in the iconic Fringe Club in Central Hong Kong (15–19/11/2023). See here for more info on exhibitions, workshops and other TypicalPlan endeavours.

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