Jochem Vanden Ecker

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A screen captured by the artist at the end of his residency. The pictures were taken during his walk.

 

TRANSFERRING SPACES

my work as a toolbox for navigating life, …………………………………………………… cleaving instant rituals; the situation sensitive act of turning the space of possibility into a space itself. Walking together and swapping interlinking archives of little thoughts and crests growing a series of performances and photographic archives reflecting the relationship between ‘art’ and life dealing with this notion of ‘nomadic exposures/ ‘boden’ movement .(this transferable boden) as our body’s move, the way we think also shifts. … it changes with every perception and every action continually revising ourselves, reorganizing existing circuits, input gets decomposed and then recomposed shifting between different media to discriminate ‘spatial relationships’…

 

– Norge 02; 19 Sinik. (Sept. 02.)  a 3 week walk no human contact.
– Norge 03; Thoughts Cloud the Walk. (Okt. 03.) a 3 week walk extended by three months due to frostbite.
– steingärten; a day by day e-mail communication, an ongoing manuscript of displacements, temporal displays from within the everyday environment of images, a sequence-image of encounters, little sculptures, interventions in and between art and everyday life. Ongoing, started in april 05.
– workshop collective memories by calc and on line 25/26/27/28/29/30 april 2005.
– residency at AIR sept.-apr. 2006. this transferable boden; a 7 months gardenresidency living outside in a free floating self-developing ever changing architecture adding layers of experiences to a wooden floor and a fireplace.
– a Counter.Cartographies Dialogue Walk organized by CCRED (a London based collective). Berlin 4th- 5th of february 06.
– Scotland 06; the three sisters. a one week walk in the Scottish highlands 
– in and between; a poster project (reediting of the original AIR poster made in collaboration with nico dockx and jean-michel Meyers into artist posters and spreading them throughout the city of Antwerp.)  apr. 2006.
– transferring spaces;  pierekast. a soundproject in collaboration with building transmissions. an openkitchentablesession interlinking the experience of being on the road with building transmissions and the autobionomadic part of my work, resampling orignal recordings of my grandfather playing accordeon at the kitchentable. Ongoing.
– transferring spaces; AA extracts of linguistic geographies. An ongoing series of little booklets, publications send by mail (ongoing since okt 06)
-unitednationsplaza; is exhibition as school. Structured as a seminar/residency program in the city of Berlin, it will involve collaboration with approximately 60 artists, writers, theorists and a wide range of audiences for a period of one year. In the tradition of Free Universities, most of its events will be open to all those interested to take part.
-nomadicExposures. (03-06); in collaboration with Rik Desaver; an externalization of a dialogue started within the photography bookshop blow up.
– 
Espagne 03; Concentric Cycles. (Okt. 03.)
– Workstation #1. an inquiry into the physical and visual poetics of walking. (dec 03.)
– Berlin dinners. Absoluut exposures (05-06). One city, four seasons and several walks interlinking archives, thoughts and experiences. On invitation of nico dockx (guest of DAAD) and Helena sidiropoulos.


The Space of Possibility

The Belgian artist Jochem Vanden Ecker was our ComPeung artist-in-residence in March/April 2007. Right after his residency we conducted an online interview with Jochem about his work. Very much in line with his approach to art, transferring spaces, Jochem at the time of the interview was in an Internet café in downtown Chiang Mai, Ong at an Internet shop in Doi Saket and myself (Helen) in Perth, Australia.

Helen (H): Good morning Jochem, are you there?

Jochem (J): Yep, good morning.

H: That’s good!

J: Finally.

H: Yes finally but better than never.

J: That’s right but where’s Ong?

H: Ong might be a bit late as he didn’t know when the Internet café in Doi Saket would open, but we can start if your time is tight.

J: Fine with me. Funny conversing with somebody I’ve never seen in a real chat I suppose…

H: There we are in the same boat…

J: I like boat trips.

H: Me, too. Ok, let me ask you this for a start: Have you added anything new to your “toolbox” as you describe your work as a toolbox for navigating life,which actually suits the metaphor of boat trips really well?

J: I suppose so and indeed it’s more or less a metaphor toolbox archive map or a space where I’m able to store, work and re-sample all kinds of collected material.

H: Can you elaborate on that a bit more in regards of your ComPeung residency? This is your first time to Thailand if I’m correct so I’m interested in if and how that might have influenced your metaphor toolbox archive map?

J: I don’t think in this case we have to connect it to the physical site of ComPeung but rather back to the walk.

H: I agree that it doesn’t necessarily have to be connected to the physical site of ComPeung. What I meant is rather how did this space – and I don’t mean just ComPeung – present itself to you? Did you get a feel of it by engaging with it through walking? And also did your stored toolbox archive map help you with the navigation?

J: That was actually where I was heading towards. More then before this space was generated by the walk whereas before it was more determined by the floor, “Boden” [soil] where I resided. Maybe “Standort” [base] would be a good word to describe it.

H: So, if I understand you correctly, Compeung was your Standort, your base. And from there you did, what you describe as “walking, thinking and walking away from it”?

J: I used to work like that, really holding on to this Standort, this spot on the map, this point that you can determine from which you know the coordinates but I think the more you walk the more this space becomes a kind of interactive architecture. The point on the map becoming a point again and less a fixation then.

H: I like the idea of space becoming an “interactive architecture” the more familiar or even intimate you become with that space. Is is fair to say that your process can be described that you start out at the beginning from a state of being dislocated, then you become more located and due to that you choose to let it go again so that the space becomes dislocated again?

At this point Ong joined the interview.

H: Good morning Ong!

J: Good morning

Ong (O): Good morning guys! Sorry I’m so late. Just found the only open Internet shop in Doi Saket.

H: That’s alright. Jochem and I have already started on our virtual boat trip.

O: Yep, thought so.

H: Sorry Jochem, I didn’t want to distract you from answering and I still would like to hear your answer. I am really intrigued by your statement: “of turning a space of possibility into a space itself”. After having achieved that to only letting the space go back to the possibility state again? Yes?

J: Exactly. That’s where the points become points again, where this architecture turns into a space of possibility rather then some kind of pretext.

H: How does this then translate or rather lead to a physical work or art or doesn’t it? The process itself is the art? The spatial mind process achieved by the physical process of walking is your art work?

J: It’s really interlinked with this notion of being on the road of trial and error.

H: Meaning…for instance, you take photos along the way. What happens to those photos afterwards when you have walked away Jochem?

H: Join in Ong when you see a lead.

O: Ok. What’s the question? I missed it.

H: I was asking Jochem how his walking in order to turn the space of possibility into a space itself translates or leads to a physical body of art work.

O: Got it!

H: I think Jochem has disappeared again Ong. He appears to be offline, yes?

O: Are you still there, Jochem? Yeah, looks like he just lost contact.

J: I was disconnected but I’m back again. I described this spatial mind process as transferring spaces, a term common to the virtual world, a colliding of virtual, physical and mental spaces or scapes. This interconnecting, interweaving of dots, points, data which doesn’t necessarily have to result in a physical work.

H: Agreed but suppose it does result in a physical work? The reason why I’m asking is that what you are saying in relation to your art reminds me of Richard Long’s work, but with the difference that he later on creates spatial installations based on those walks or while walking, apart from his films of course.

O: How do you decide “when” and “where” to walk?

J: I think this process of becoming this interwoven as the work could be compared with Long’s turning walking into a sculpture but where the walking doesn’t necessarily have to result in a physical walk which doesn’t exclude it off course. Last walk should be work object.

H: Do you record your walks other than taking photos along the way?

J: I think walking provides this freedom or rather its characteristic.

H:Your walking experiences in Thailand have they been any different from other spaces you have walked in the past? And also what Ong just asked, how do you decide “when” and “where” to walk? Is it random?

J: I see the act of taking pictures, the camera as a kind of sensorial glove, folding, unfolding, scanning the environment which in a way excludes the exclusivity of the act. It is just a tool as is the walk.

H: A tool to turn the data dots into interactive architecture and ultimately reversing them back into data dots? But what makes you choose one space over another?

J: I wouldn’t confine it to deciding where and when to walk. I wouldn’t stress so much on the decisive act of walking, of turning the walk into an object but rather walking as an everyday day by day kind of action, balancing on or scanning this line between everydayness and art.

H: So wherever your physical everydayness takes you, it not only can happen but does happen?

J: One could say indeed that apart from not needing to result in a object this practice is really physical, yes some overall kind of physicalness.

H: So it is random? Instead of Thailand now it could have been another possible space as well?

J: The space of possibility.

H: That answers it, the vastness of possibilities.

J: For now it’s Thailand but any less exotic place will do.

H: Do you ever re-visit?

J: I’m going to build a house here…[laughing]

H: Once the space is mapped out?

J: The space of the house so it can become another “Insel” [island].

H: Insel as in base or Standort?

O: Both?

H: Got your file Jochem. Nice spot for a house…it might be turned into a space of possibility again…

At this point our interview (April 24, 2007) came to an abrupt end. As it turned out Jochem got disconnected again and his virtual presence evolved to disappearance in the space of possibility.