image: © M HKA
From a technocratic point of view, the term ‘mobility’ refers to road works, trucks, trains and airports. But mobility is also an existential phenomenon, both human and social. For alongside the mechanised ballet of our society, there is, more and more predominantly, our own ephemeral and nomadic feeling of existence, as well as the frustrating blockages and forced displacements of a fleeting world.
In an information report, the Senate made recommendations for more integrated public transportation, including a single ticket for the country and more intermodal transport.
In her video featuring short film clips edited together, Ria Pacquée (°1954, Antwerp) zaps between West and East, North and South. She thus confronts impressions of human actions – a sand storm in Morocco and a walk, with a headwind, of an elderly woman on the Belgian seaside – and questions: how to make the invisible visible?
A recurring figure in Johan Muyle’s works (°1956, living in Liège), the skeleton refers to the cycle of life and death, tragicomically, as in popular culture. Bearing the artist's head, they are motorised and mechanised, in a desperate attempt to replay the race from life to death.
The works of Johanna Kandl (°1954, living in Vienna) evoke the difficult living conditions in border regions. But it addresses the prosaic reality of contemporary news media through traditional historical painting. This monumental painting questions the rushed transition to capitalism, which was a harrowing experience for many in the former Eastern Bloc: “Who’s got the big picture?”.
>Ria Pacquée, Inch'Allah, 2005.Video, videotape digital betacam, dvd, 00:18:40.
>Johan Muyle, Atlas, 2006.Installation, 135 cm x 110cm x 90cm ; 220 cm x 116 cm x 105 cm ; 135 cm x 113 cm x 78 cm.
>Johanna Kandl, Ohne titel (Who's got the big picture), 2006.Film, tempera, canvas, 258 x 354 cm.