Francine (was a machine)
2019
Silk screen prints, lenticular lens, steel, plastic, plaster, silicon, 16mm film, HD video
From the exhibition Francine (was a machine) at Kunsthall Trondheim
From the exhibition Francine (was a machine) at Kunsthall Trondheim
“I want to tell a story” – that’s how the film which lends its title to this exhibition, starts. The story that Marte Aas is relating to is the one about René Descartes’ mechanical daughter, a fable about a man of rationality and scince creating a human looking machine in the place of his dead daughter Francine. During a travel through a storm at sea, the seamen discovered the doll in Descartes’ cabin and horrified threw it into the ocean.
Francine was a machine, an automaton, an early cousin of today’s Sophias, soon becoming normal parts of everyday life – like the fridge, maybe already quite intelligent and greeting us with a stiff smile, if we care to notice it? In Marte Aas’ works the everyday is animated with a gaze that presents us with something that is familiar but undefined – in a way that is reminiscent of the naive gaze of a stranger encountering a new place, or that confused moment we can experience before interpretation sets in. Throughout her oeuvre she applies this gaze, which also is a trust in the image and in the camera. Given time – what will emerge? What can be seen? In the seemingly ordinary and the everyday, layers and new meaning surprisingly appear.
Excerpt from the text by Helena Holmberg for the exhibition catalogue
Read articles:
ArtScene Trondheim 23.01.19 (NO)
Kunstkritikk 28.01.19 (NO)
Francine was a machine, an automaton, an early cousin of today’s Sophias, soon becoming normal parts of everyday life – like the fridge, maybe already quite intelligent and greeting us with a stiff smile, if we care to notice it? In Marte Aas’ works the everyday is animated with a gaze that presents us with something that is familiar but undefined – in a way that is reminiscent of the naive gaze of a stranger encountering a new place, or that confused moment we can experience before interpretation sets in. Throughout her oeuvre she applies this gaze, which also is a trust in the image and in the camera. Given time – what will emerge? What can be seen? In the seemingly ordinary and the everyday, layers and new meaning surprisingly appear.
Excerpt from the text by Helena Holmberg for the exhibition catalogue
Read articles:
ArtScene Trondheim 23.01.19 (NO)
Kunstkritikk 28.01.19 (NO)
