Text by Simon Kirby

Core Periphery One: A Conversation Across Time and Space Between Rolf A Kluenter, Pu Songling and Simon Kirby.

Visions have their origin in those who see them: what explanation can I give?


Pu Songling: One day Mr Chu, MA, chanced upon a certain monastery, within … they found only an old priest in déshabillé … who showed them murals painted on either side … life-like representations of men, animals, fairies … among whom was a young girl whose maiden tresses were not yet confined by the matron’s knot. She was picking flowers and gently smiling, while her cherry lips seemed about to move ...

Rolf A Kluenter: From the very moment that we, as human beings, attained consciousness a fundamental tension has ground our passage through life. We ceaselessly ask ourselves:

‘From where does this consciousness spring?’
‘What is the use of these physical bodies that chain us so to the mundane? ’
‘If only we could take flights of pure consciousness, uncoupled from physical form’
‘What substance does our illusive consciousness take hereafter?’


Simon Kirby: The Ke Luo Fu Project, a series of ambitious installation works of which Core-Periphery One forms one part, inhabits and expands border regions between perceived realities, utopian reveries and contestedly fabricated virtual realms. It shows the artist’s own creative researches opening into a universe of philosophical endeavour, historical allusion, spiritual yearning and fearless heralding of the possibilities of a technological human future.

Pu Songling: Mr. Chu gazed for a long time ... until at last he became unconscious of everything but the thoughts that were engrossing him. Then, suddenly he felt himself floating in the air, as if riding on a cloud, and found himself passing through the wall, where halls and pavilions stretched away one after another, unlike the abodes of mortals. …. after a few moments perceived a gentle tug at his sleeve. … Turning round, he saw the young girl above-mentioned, who walked laughing away. Together..,. they fell on their knees and worshiped heaven and earth together, and rose up as man and wife.’

Rolf A Kluenter: Our troubled human metaphysical enquiries give rise to restless creative acts. Acts through which we attempt to enter pure consciousness unencumbered by these weighty bodies. In these attempts we grasp at all of the evolving technological tools of expression as they become available to us in our human evolution.


Simon Kirby: The exterior of Kluenter’s installation work is a cuboid, room-sized container. The external walls and the ground around it chronicle, through images, text and allusion, the non-bodily journeyings of Metaphysician Chu. By extension they also invite us, the participant, to journey with Pu and with Kluenter on journeys of our own.

Pu Songling: The young lady’s companions laughed and said “My dear, you are now a married woman, and should leave off that maidenly coiffure." So they gave her the proper hairpins and head ornaments, and bade her go bind her hair, at which she blushed very much but said nothing.

… suddenly they heard a sound like the tramping of heavy-soled boots, accompanied by the clanking of chains and the noise of angry discussion… They saw a man clad in golden armor, with a face as black as jet, carrying in his hands chains and whips …. “If,” said he, “any mortal is here concealed amongst you, denounce him at once, and lay not up sorrow for yourselves.” … In her terror she said to Mr. Chu, “Hide yourself under the bed,” and opening a small lattice in the wall, disappeared herself. Mr. Chu in his concealment hardly dared to draw his breath…


Rolf A Kluenter: The vocabularies created by new digital technology have generated the possibility of endless new kinds of simulations to express human metaphysical yearning. Yet these vocabularies have not yet in themselves resolved any of humankind’s great dilemmas.


Simon Kirby: Step inside and Kluenter’s installation becomes the interior of the artist’s studio. A continuously opening door gives onto a corner the urban Shanghai. The continuously closing door brings us back into the artist’s own internal realm. Eight interlinked, continuously evolving narratives are projected across the interior. The protagonists, roughly captured in stop motion animation, include the artist himself (unseen); the artist’s fox spirit muse; and fragments of the artist’s work (paintings, sculpture and other fetishised objects). These populate a studio of the imagination: attired in conceptual, digital extensions to its own feeling body’

Pu Songling: Then with his finger the old priest tapped the wall and called out, “Friend Chu! What makes you stay away so long?” At this, the likeness of Mr. Chu was figured upon the wall, with his ear inclined in the attitude of one listening. .. immediately Mr. Chu descended from the wall, standing transfixed like a block of wood, with starting eyeballs and trembling legs.….


Rolf A Kluenter: Digital technologies and designed manipulation of our own DNA has brought us to a great threshold of possibility. The human being must certainly not halt here. We will become capable of merging our physical beings – in newly created and mutated forms through genetic modification - with all of the endless possibilities of implanted digitalized technology. At last we will become capable, and very soon, of metaphysical - physical journeying of our own navigation.


Simon Kirby: The painted, the sculpted, the photographed and filmed, the documented, and the digitally generated meld in an array of confusion. Random coincidence is excluded. Allusions are made to violence exposed, to spiritual cynicism, sexual errancy and to deep erotic tenderness. Allusions that embrace existential confrontation and peer into abysses of subjugation and release. Kluenter’s intense staging is imbued with philosophical resignation and with swelling, global, digital saturation. Inevitably, human evolution leads us to deep submersion into virtual depths; and ultimately to profound amphibious genetic mutation.


Here they all noticed that the young lady on the wall with the maiden’s tresses had changed the style of her coiffure to that of a married woman. Mr. Chu was greatly astonished at this and asked the old priest the reason.

He replied, “Visions have their origin in those who see them: what explanation can I give?”




Simon Kirby, Putuo District, Shanghai. April 2009.


Notes:

Title quote and text in italic from Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio [Liaozhai Zhiyi 聊斋志异] by Pu Songling [蒲松龄] 1640 － 1715. Abridged from Herbert Allen Giles (8 December 1845 – 13 February 1935)’s translation 1880. The staring point and inspiration for Kleunter’s installation work Core Periperhy One.

Artist quotes from conversations with writer Simon Kirby. Shanghai. March - April 2009

Interpretation by Simon Kirby, expanded from a 2008 collaborative text written with the artist at the outset of the Ke Luo Fu project.

“core periphery one” Ke Luo Fu Project

2008/09

Originally, the “core-periphery” theory is based on the notion that as one region or state expands in economic prosperity; it must engulf regions nearby to ensure ongoing economic and political success. The area of high growth becomes known as the core, and the neighboring area is the periphery. Cores and peripheries may be towns, cities, states, or nations.

Rolf A. Kluenter’s installation “core periphery one” is a walk-in room that offers its four outer and inner walls as projection surfaces for interaction with the walls and a multimedia interactive program. The visitor becomes a “core-being” of the installation as she/he walks around and/or into the room - interacting and/or initiating several hidden built-in interactive mechanisms which alter the sequence of the “peripheral” ongoing program.

core periphery one

Exhibition: Merging Emerging
Art Utopia Virtual Reality
Venue: Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art
Exhibition Period: March 8 – May 15, 2008

柯罗夫 Rolf A. Kluenter
柯罗夫项目 Ke Luo Fu Project

Installation
Chinese Title: 源点
Pinyin: Yuan Dian
English Title:: Core Periphery One
Subtitle CN: “幻觉由人而生，贫道怎能解释。”
Subtitle EN: The source of illusions lies within mind.

Production period 2008/09

Installation details:
Installation multi-media interactive walk-in box
5 in-built sensors, 3 cinema chairs, 1 canvas
Mirrors, 1 pink light bulb, mixed media objects
Beamer, software, Sound whispering voice, loop

Dimensions: 365 x 680 x 570 cm

Based on:
畫壁 The Painted Wall, from Liaozhai Zhiyi
(Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio)
Classical novel written by Pu Song Ling
during Qing dynasty period.

Performing artist: Gabriella Chen
Performing artist: Mizz Zee
Voice 于烨 Yu Yi
Make up artist: Lucky Xue

Production Team:
程智Richard Cheng Artistic Director Creative High Tech Solutions
俞晓明 Yu Xiaoming Technology support
王玉鹏Wang Yupeng Video editing
车炜奇Che Weiqi Software support

In cooperation with:
张江超艺多媒体系统有限公司
Zhangjiang Leapideas Multimedia System Co.Ltd.

Bodhi Bonzai Production, Shanghai


Rolf A. Kluenter‘The Ke Luo Fu Project' is represented by TEAPOT Gallery, Cologne, Germany and stage候台BACK Gallery, Shanghai, China.

Teapot Gallery will exhibit Rolf A. Kluenter ‘The Ke Luo Fu Project' in the format of 6 times ‘Jour Fix 24 Hours Events’ from July 2009 until June 2010 in Germany.