Timo Kahlen. Experimental video tapes and installations
Timo Kahlen
Tanz für zwei Fliegen (Dance for Two Flies), 2005
Video loop, 1 min 48 sec
Two dead flies engaged
in a perpetual, whirling movement
"Earcatcher", Ruine der Kuenste Berlin 2006
Timo Kahlen. Small Turbulence (Proposal
for
an immaterial sculpture), 1991 / 1999
Video loop, 1 min 43 sec
Steam from the street, kept in movement by cars
"Timo Kahlen’s work is characterized by a subtle perception of the natural and the technical world. In his video Small Turbulence (Proposal for an immaterial sculpture, 1991/1999) Timo Kahlen takes the role of a discoverer in a world, where there’s nothing left to discover, simply because everything has seemingly been analysed and explained. Nonetheless, what seems common, everyday, like the steam coming from a sewage pipe in the busy streets of New York, can be seen as a singular, phenomenal event and truly become an ephemeral, immaterial sculpture. Always, Kahlen tries to investigate and understand phenomena at their blurry edges: just before, in between, besides and after the actual event." (Dr. Jule Reuter, Berlin 2001)
This video proposal for an immaterial sculpture was nominated for the
"Kahnweiler-Prize for Sculpture" 2001 in Rockenhausen, Germany
Timo Kahlen. In der Schwebe (Afloat), 1992
Conceptual drawing for exhibition space
filled with drifting clouds of steam.
Berlin 1992
Timo Kahlen. White Noise, 2006 - 2008
Video, 4 min
A reflecting surface of water forms the projection screen
for innumerable drops of water,
ironically recreating a signal fundamental to video art :
'white noise', the absence of any recorded information.
Timo Kahlen playfully re-creates the technical
phenomenon as an analog (and analogous) process.
First presented at Directors Lounge, Berlin 2006
Timo Kahlen. (180 minutes of wind), 1996
Series of audio tape cculptures
Timo Kahlen
Gähnen (Yawning), 1998
A subtle psycho-aesthetical trap
for our senses.
Triggering off innate natural reflexes in the viewer,
the video installation shows the artist,
inactively and passively gazing at the viewer,
spontaneously yawning, again and
again.
To be presented in a room with dim light
Shortlisted for ISEA 2009, Belfast
Timo Kahlen
Liquid Light, 1989 / 1999
Ephemeral, moving sculpture of light
(found) beneath a tree
Video, 4 min 10 sec
"Liquid Light", Galerie im Parkhaus / Berlin 2000
Timo Kahlen
Junger Mond (Young Moon),1993 -1999
Video, 11 min 20 sec
An immaterial sculptural process :
the moon caught / burning itself
into the branches of a tree
"Liquid Light", Galerie im Parkhaus / Berlin 2000
Timo Kahlen
Divergenz (Divergence), 1994 / 2000
Video, 1 min 50 sec
Lost in translation. An ambivalent approach to mimesis:
the stereoscopic image of a tree, red and blue images
slowly disintegrating, and second-hand, scientific descriptions
of birds' songs, read aloud by the artist from a bird-watcher's book,
gain abstract qualities. Both visual and linguistic models
serve as (and prove to be) fragile references to the natural setting.
"Staubrauschen", Galerie Pankow / Berlin 2000
Timo Kahlen. Rasenstück, 2002
Video installation / projection
4 Min 42 Sec / Loop, stereo
Exactly five hundred years after Albrecht Dürer’s
aquarell drawing of a piece of grass (Großes Rasenstück, 1503 / Vienna),
the video projection shows several pieces of lawn, cut out and
isolated in a white background, a still life immensely enlarged in scale.
The sound of crickets creates a tranquil, natural background.
But every once in a while, the image is disrupted by the
strong vibration of cars and lorries that can be heard rushing by.
Modern nature, however, seems to remain stoical, unmoved
and unimpressed.
"Zewidewit Zizidaeh", Galerie im Saalbau,
Berlin 2002
Timo Kahlen. Everything Will Be Alright, 2008
Proposal for neon lettering / projection on the
ruptured historical facade
of the Ruine der Kuenste Berlin :
an exhibition space for
'material and immaterial arts'
Courtesy Ruine der Kuenste Berlin, Berlin 2008
Timo Kahlen
Schärfeun(d)fall (Gravity),
1987
The artist standing beneath an apple tree,
dropping an apple: again and again
Video, 7 min
"Video-Tage", Salzgitter 1988 et al.
Timo Kahlen. Rotation II and Moon # 2, 1993 - 94
Series of rotating sculptures:
experiments on visual dissolution of the object
Video tapes, each ca. 1 min
Collection of the artist
Timo Kahlen
Divergence II, 2001-02
Video
An isolated akanthus leaf animated
by the wind of an electrical fan. How do
technology and visual media change and
redefine our perception of nature ?
International Artist in Residence Programme / the gallery, Guernsey 2001
Timo Kahlen. Vertical, 2001
Video installation
This site-specific video work, realized as part of the 2001 residency
at 'the gallery' in St. Peter Port on the Channel island
of Guernsey, reflects on the gallery's immediate location and environs.
It projects the view of the horizon at sea - the dominant visual lead
defining and encompassing the island - into the gallery space,
while readjusting it by 90°. The video projection now shows the horizon
as a changeable, moving, jagged vertical line.
In the related video installation "Inverse" (Guernsey 2001),
waves at sea - seen inverted, upside down - produce
unseen arabesques, plunging and imploding in space.
From a series of video installations presented at
the gallery, Guernsey 2001. Courtesy International Artist in Residence Programme,
the gallery, Guernsey 2001
Timo Kahlen has held a Lectureship on Visual Media and
Video Art
at the Fine Arts departments of the Humboldt-Universitaet
and the Hochschule der Kuenste Berlin from 1993 to 1998.
His earliest video tapes and video
installations
date to the mid-1980s.
Timo
Kahlen Works with Wind
Sound Sculptures
Video works Experimental Photography
E-mail
© Timo Kahlen / VG Bild-Kunst, 1999 - 2012