On Transformance by Nina Kurtela

8/12/2019 On Transformance by Nina Kurtela

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154 155Nina Kurtela Leftovers of endurance

Transformance by Nina Kurtela is a doc-umentation of a five months-long durationalperformance, structured as time-lapses outof hundreds of still photographs. The artistpositions herself/her body in the center of

the image that depicts an empty warehousein the process of undergoing reconstruction,establishing the daily routine of witnessingtransformations of the architectural space inBerlin. Everything is under construction . Thereare construction works in progress. The spaceis undergoing a transformation, a change. Itis undergoing change of purpose, from be-ing BVG Berlin’s public transport garage and

workshop to a space for contemporary dance.In this way a change is both about a new archi-tectural form and its new function, purpose,meaning and social context.

Having established the daily routine of be-

ing-in-the-space , Nina Kurtela witnesses themonths-long process of the transformationand change of this architectural space.

Transformance poses questions on the possibil-ities of space and the production of meaning.In the transformation of the social and eco-

Performanceof duration,transformationand change Branka BenËiÊ

Branka BenËiÊ, independent curator. Founder and curator of cine-maniac — platform for artists’ moving image, established in 2002, Pula FilmFestival. Curator of the ongoing screening program Artists’ Cinema, Muse-um of Contemporary Art, Zagreb. Served as director and curator at Gallery01, Zagreb and Head of Public Collection, City of Pula. Publishes on contem-

porary art in exhibition catalogues and the specialized press. Has curatedgroup and solo exhibitions, film/video screening programs in Croatia andinternationally.




nomic landscape, a new spatial context is es-tablishing the role of art in detecting the timeand space we live in.

Those months-long visits undertaken by Nina

Kurtela and her presence in the time-lapsevideo Transformance can trigger different rela-tions to articulate social and spatial phenom-ena, which are revealed as the meeting pointof the subject and the transformations of thesocial and physical environment.

Models of representation of a space are con-structed based on different fragments — lay-

ers of immediate environment, daily routines,everyday experiences, traces from the past,bits of culture and society, which establishperspectives on processes of thinking and per-ception. “Contemporary performance in thedomain of culture”, points out Miπko ©uva-koviÊ, “is a performative work of an artistthat intervenes in the field of culture.” A per-formance as an art-related event presupposes

performing in real time, in front of an audi-ence, and is subsequently available by the wayof documentation, while a video-performanceis meant for the camera. Transformance is per-

formed without an audience and it is mediat-ed by a dense sequence consisting of hundredsof photographs structured into a time-lapsevideo. In this way documentation, structureand organization of an artistic action of lim-

ited duration such as a performance is shapedas a form of its representation that reflects andmakes visible the process of development ofan artwork. Transformance by Nina Kurtela inthis way is not understood only as a documen-tation of a performative action, but also as avideo-performance, a performance staged forand in front of the camera.

It has been said that the relationships betweenart, technology and identity have not been ex-plored in any other artistic medium with suchconsistency and continuity as in the mediumof video. Placing her own body, own figure andexploring technical and semantic possibilitiesof montage and manipulation, by interven-tions into the flow of time and the time-spacecomplex, she leads us to witness an interest

in social aspects and transformative process-es in the immediate every day surroundingsthat are taking place on the edges of real andhybrid space and time, transcending and ma-




nipulating real, fixed and imaginary boundar-ies. Time that takes shape in such a time-spacepastiche construction is a time of simulation,a hybrid time. As a result of a crisis of repre-sentation, reorganization and rearrangement

of the feelings of time and space, possibilitiesof technical and digital manipulation can un-derscore the uncertain position of the subject,the isolation and unstable character of identi-ty, drawing attention to concepts of transfor-mation and change.

Although the protagonist is present, the mainevent is performed by the medium itself, under-

scoring the constructed character of media per-formance, making visible transformations inand changes to the surrounding environment,interior and mise-en-scene. In this way the ba-sic artistic process has been made bare, and atthe same time and at the same level the phasesof construction of the artwork and the de/con-struction of interior architecture are revealed.

The construction of the scene is becoming themain narrative that emphasizes the montage — collage construction of the artwork, revealsthe manipulation by the media and mediated,

manipulated and constructed reality of theevent, that the artist herself is continuouslywitnessing. The possibilities of digital tech-nology and postproduction process are un-derscoring the constructed character of the

event, condensing a five months long processof the artist inhabiting the space into a severalminutes long performance video that even byjumps, cuts and glitches of the image stressesthe continuity of the performance while wewitness the construction and transformationof the event site, an interior environment un-der construction. The historical trajectory oftechniques and manipulation in montage pro-

cedures from avant-garde cinema to contem-porary computer animation has the goal ofconstituting a new temporal dimension andnew spatial relations, making them bare andmaking process of transformation becomingvisible and taking shape in front of our eyes.

On Transformance by Nina Kurtela

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