M HKA Ensembles

Video, variable dimensions, interactive.

Collection: Courtesy of the Artist (Inv. no. 066).

"Metabolism first" is an interactive work based on a series of drawings called:" I'll rob you".  I made the drawings from May till August 2005 in the Stadshalle in Bruges, Belgium. I worked 12 consecutive weeks in the exposition “ Tussen Huid en Orgasme”, curated by Kunsthalle Lophem." I'll rob you" consists of 37 drawings on colored paper, they unite the writings of :

A/ Marguerite Porete (burnt in Paris), mystic, 1300 (Miroir des âmes simples et anéanties et qui seulement demeurent en vouloir et désir d’amour)- B/ Giordano Bruno (burnt in Rome), hermetic, 1600 (different sources) - C/ Herbert Marcuse (theoretician for the sexual revolution), filosopher, 1955 (Eros & Civilisation).

While reading and using their 3 books through the process of drawing, I found out that each of them, from their specific time and place in history, deal with the same philosophical questions/problems. From the bottom of their jargon they cannot hide their common concern of how to deal with reality. Or: " What happens to me when heart and brain become separate?"

Together with assistant Christophe Engels, I conceived 5 different digital, interactive, approaches to deconstruct and reconstruct the drawings. We were guided by the classic alchemical steps, present in every creative process: 1. pulverise, 2.dissolve, 3.distill, 4.glow out, 5.sediment. We showed the installations in the Jenever Museum in Hasselt as part of the “Super!” event. The invention and production of jenever haits roots in the old alchemist tradition."  

− AMVK

Concept and drawings: AMVK

Interactivity and postproduction: Christophe Engels

Producer: Stad Hasselt/Club Moral