Invisible movements
Invisible Movements again demonstrates Caitlin Franzmann’s distinctive sensitivity to spatial ambience—both light and sound—via an elemental composition of video, light, sound, static sculpture, an esoteric newspaper and one-night performance. The installation’s pace, somewhere between slowness and staidness, seemed eager to make space for contemplation. (Meditative but not annoyingly new-agey.) On screen, the video’s lone protagonist sat alone in a café reading a newspaper unremarkably, while the multi-tasking restlessness of the composition pushed ahead. Ticking, clicking, tacking sounds (a dripping pipe and Istanbul’s ubiquitous Okey chips) kept time, while also traveling in stereo. LED lights behind the screen emphasised its solid objecthood, and only occasionally behaved as intermezzo between scenes. At the far end of the gallery, a four-armed wooden and stone apparatus called out for bodies to turn it and perform.
This exhibition at Metro Arts is the outcome of Franzmann’s artist residency at Torna, Istanbul in early 2014. Most of the work has already been shown at Torna, but for this iteration, it was transplanted back into Franzmann’s originary context. Making international relationships and conversations is the most basic tenet of such programs, however, at the core of what Franzmann has produced is an interrogation of such connections—visible and otherwise. In this something is made sensible and, in unequal parts, withheld. (‘Invisible Movements’ already sounded spectral and potentially melancholic, didn’t it?) Franzmann’s work is reminiscent of Mike Nelson’s incredibly byzantine installation, ‘Istanbul’, in the British Pavilion for the Venice Biennale of 2009. There are clear differences—not least of which is Franzmann’s restrained taxonomy of site. Still, material has been collected and transported from this (the same) place. I have a sense that Franzmann is into psychogeography, yet I
Caitlin Franzmann, Everensel Kate (Universal Cafe), 2014. Video still.
Installation view, Metro Arts. Courtesy the artist.
