Freedom 2.0

Credits:
concept, director, camera, editing, sound, installation: Valerie Wolf Gang
voice: Connor McIntyre
dancer: Alex Hong
sponsors: University of Nova Gorica, Lassale College Of The Arts, Institute of Contemporary Arts Singaproe

Video Freedom 2.0

Watch video from exhibition opening at Institute of Contemporary Arts:

Freedom 2.0 represents the search for personal freedom in the world. First there was poetry discussing the ambiguity of the world and our artificial freedom. Then came the video based on the poetry. Through shots of nature and the city it displays layered contrasts surrounding us from the outside, yet hiding in us and in the system we live in. Our conviction of freedom can be deceiving. If we carefully observe the details around us, it becomes clear how limited we actually are: boundaries, controls, laws, warnings, signs etc. The only thing that remains is nature where we can escape, hide and find our freedom. The question is where is the end, the boundary at the end of nature that says: “Passage through this point is not permitted” or „Unauthorized access forbidden“. The issue of freedom is explored through poetry to seek solutions: We can only be personal in our heads, in art and in free movement of the body. „Are we free? Let’s think again.” The considerably narrow and tight format of the video is all about restrictions as well. Natural atmospheric sounds of birds and an underground recording of an earthquake form part of the video, contrasting and complementing each other and achieving harmony between the world and the city. At the same time, however, warning signs are telling us that something is terribly wrong.

“In Valerie Wolf Gang’s FREEDOM 2.0, the sense of social and ideological alienation is played out through careful visual choice of materials and reconstructions. Yet, an emerging divergent sense of resistance made possible through the execution of the presented work shows up the very irony embedded in the constraining conditions of freedom – not as the presence of coercion but its absence. The very ideological condition of such symbolic production or representation becomes its very own success – in what is represented. And in FREEDOM 2.0, one is made aware of the instability of the larger ideological or symbolic order through the actual material configurations being presented – that things can be about something else other than what they are made out to be.” – Lawrence Chin, ISSUE 1: LAND, Singaporean Annual Art Journal

Video installation at Institution for Contemporary Arts:

Video installation in Palace Alvarez: