Vice Versa Reversed

“hi. how are you?“ - “ i don’t know“ - “ oh. what’s up? do you want to talk about it?“ — a bed — a body — a voice — a stream of countless fluttering images. Imminently before we fall asleep, we seem to take a bath in a flood of visual memories, passing thoughts, remote feelings and emotions. The bed becomes a fragile threshold, an interspace between the subconscious and conscious reflection. Images function as archived fragments of a distant (yet close) time and place, carried into sleep by our minds and glowing social devices. What characterises the perceptible tension of being in-between in this very moment of intimacy and solitude?

With their multi-media installation Vice Versa Reversed (2021), Isabella Fürnkäs and Jasmin Truong raise questions about inner surveillance and the continuous re-reconstruction of encounters, memories and narratives through new technologies and media devices in intimate, self-created spaces: Two flat screens are framing a big white bed with a colourful patchwork blanket and a performer interacting with a phone and wearing a patchwork pyjama made from the same material as the bed-cover, creating a familiar yet strange atmosphere. The patchwork fabric of the pyjama and the blanket visually connect with the overlapping, scattered moving images on the video screens, that seem intangible — a cross-over of the haptic and the corporal alongside the virtual. While the performer, who is constantly moving on the bed, consumes their own “infotainment“ before falling asleep, both body and mind are constantly being suffused with internal and external stimuli. They seem permeable. Even though they do not look uncomfortable surrounded by the passing mul- ti-channel-videos, the installation appears as a situation with no way out, symbolising a self-constructed net of mutual dependence in social networks and virtual relationships. Especially the recurring voices — invisible, non-corporal counterparts of the performer — creating a dialogue between the two flickering screens, remain far off but too persistent and contribute to the ambivalent scenery that casts doubt on ideas of freedom and autonomy in modern societies today. Referring to connotations of the prevailing dualism fe-/male, the two voices can be read as male (active) and female (passive), representing the inter-play of dominant gender constructs in contrast to the silent, visual and androgynous embodiment of their subconscious processing by the performing body. “come. trust me. you can trust me“ - “I’m confused“ - “ why?“ - “ i’m not sure“.

Vice Versa Reversed (2021) by Isabella Fürnkäs and Jasmin Truong depicts the corporal and sensual experience right in the middle of the digital dimension. Performed for the first time at Strike a Pose at the K21 Kunstsammlung NRW directly next to Julia Scher’s Surveillance Bed III installation from 1994, the interdisciplinary art work focuses on the contemporary overlapping and fragmented re- lations of time and space that culminate in the intimate sphere of the individual. The side-by-side of the installation next to Julia Scher’s, which has been created in very different period of time, appears to be an interesting combination: While Julia Scher’s work of the 1990s deals with the ubiquitous surveillance from the outside, Isabella Fürnkäs and Jasmin Truong locate a new level of self-monitoring in the supervision of our time. Materiality and intimacy, narration formats and circular clouds enter into relation with each other and meet a pouring and perspective-building layering of imagery in the constructed video-works. With this multi-media installation, the artistic duo takes up the fragmented in an interdisciplinary way and reflects on narrative factors that come together to form a whole.

- Text by Anna K. Wlach