At Careof’s spaces, Transmedia inaugurates, a project realized by Kunstraum Walcheturm of Zurich and Careof within the exchange program Viavai - Contrabbando culturale Svizzera-Lombardia by the Swiss Foundation for Culture Pro Helvetia.

Friday, February 20: Introduction, screening, and talk with Yves Netzhammer

In developing a possible vocabulary for his film and video-installation works, Yves Netzhammer initially looks to the medium of drawing for translatable forms of his visual imagery. The “mental stages” (Konrad Tobler) found in his works are nothing other than the continuation of drawing (and signs) through the use of other media. In the Museum Rietberg’s collection of ancient American art, Netzhammer set up his mental stage of signs by establishing a subjective dialogue between the museum’s ancient objects and artifacts and his own playful and poetic imagery. From this video installation, composed of 36 projections and a series of objects, comes the film version of Die Gegenwart sucht ihren Mund in der Spiegelung der Suppe, presented in its world premiere at Careof’s spaces as part of the Transmedia project. The artist will introduce his works and engage in discussion with the audience after the screening.

Saturday, February 21: Screening Swiss Videoartists / performance by Veli & Amos

Beyond the ordinary: in the selection proposed by Kunstraum Walcheturm and hosted by Careof at the Milan spaces of La Fabbrica del Vapore—all recent video productions by the new generation of Swiss artists—there emerges, amid a variety of themes and scenarios, a common trait of a fatal attraction to the unusual, disorder, irregularity, madness. In a word, antisystem. The depicted subjects appear as projections of a reaction to the orderly and regulated context in which Swiss artists operate—a setting of granite conventions and rigid structures from which to escape by fleeing into an opposite imaginary, subverting rules and deconstructing the given order. On one side, then, the fascination with “outside” contexts, where one is always positioned on the edge, on the brink of losing oneself and one’s boundaries; on the other side, an explicit critique of a system that cages individuals in the absolute certainty of norm and normality. The distortions of social control then fuel the need to break free from the cages by overthrowing imposed reality, creating or seeking another parallel, possible reality in which to break order.

Following this, the live performance life is a beach, sun doesn’t set by the Zurich-based duo Veli & Amos, who work according to the principle of continuous creation, in every available environment and at every given moment. The two artists exploit the hidden potential of everyday life, coincidences, limitations, and socio-political conditions. They transform their experience of the world into images, synthesizing them into statements that primarily represent their point of view on the state of society. They do so without commenting, criticizing, or moralizing. They simply create “pictures” or, more precisely, “share their vision” with others.