Guilty Landscapes

Dries Verhoeven | International Festival New Europe. Insights / New Europe nternational Festival. Insights

"Guilty Landscapes" is a video installation and one-on-one experience

The Common-Room Mon - Wed 17:00-21:00 / Sat - Sun 13:00-21:00 (every 10 min) Play duration: 8 minutes Tickets: 10 PLN

"Guilty Landscapes" is a video installation and one-on-one experience

The Common-Room Mon - Wed 17:00-21:00 / Sat - Sun 13:00-21:00 (every 10 min) Play duration: 8 minutes Tickets: 10 PLN

The continual availability of news on our laptops, televisions and smartphones makes us perpetual witnesses to complex situations on the other side of the world feeling unease through the confrontation with poverty and desperation. The news camera is not neutral; intentionally or unintentionally, those who are filmed are framed as victims. Before they know it, the socially conscious viewer is dragged into a vortex of guilt and shame.

With the large scale video installation Dries Verhoeven brings the reality of uncomfortable news images confrontationally close. He poses the question of whether a personal connection is possible between the viewer and the person being viewed. What if the news were to turn and look at its witnesses; what if the protagonists on the evening news were to look us in the eye?

In 2016 Dries Verhoeven created a series of four episodes of Guilty Landscapes, commissioned by and for various European cities. 

Dries Verhoeven (1976 Oosterhout, the Netherlands) is a theatre maker and visual artist. He creates installations, performances and happenings in museums, on location and in the public spaces of cities. On the boundary between performance and installation art, he critically evaluates the relationships between the spectators, performers, everyday reality and art. The spectator is directly involved in the work or given the opportunity to steer his or her own experiences.

In his work, Verhoeven highlights aspects of the common social reality in which we live. He is not concerned with conveying a statement about reality, but mainly about unbalancing the visitor in order to evoke a shared vulnerability between the viewer and the viewed work. With gestures, which radically affect the public order of everyday life, he hopes to sow the seeds of doubt about the systems that inconspicuously influence our thoughts and actions. In recent years, the current crisis mind-set and the influence of digital media on interpersonal relationships in particular have formed the basis for his projects.

Dries Verhoeven resides in Berlin and Amsterdam. More information about Dries Verhoeven.

Information

  • Concept Dries Verhoeven
  • Production Studio Dries Verhoeven
  • Photography Willem Popelier, Christopher Hewitt & Pinelopi Gerasimou
  • Video registration Thorsten Alofs, Christopher Hewitt
  • Co-production: SPRING Festival Utrecht (NL), Foreign Affairs Berlijn (DE), Theaterfestival Boulevard ’s-Hertogenbosch (NL) and MU Eindhoven (NL)
  • Guilty Landscapes is made possible thanks to the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds / Het Zilveren Lint Fonds oraz VSBfonds.

See also

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