Åstra robotic figure

Jakop Barn’s day trip

Jakop Barn’s day trip

2019

Video object, 78x55x24/66 cm

HD time-lapse video, aluminum suitcase, two screens 70/40, R.berryPi`s

Edit: Palosaari/Ziegler

In early autumn I had been falling in love with Jakops barn a lofty and tranquil structure that I came upon during a stay at the Kone residence place located in Mynämäki in the Southwest of Finland. During several days I experimented with different options to document the play between interior and changing sunlight with time-lapse cameras. The footage that originated from this study is now on display in form of an opened aluminum travel case. The downer part displays the camera view of the sunbeams slowly advancing on the wooden floorboards while the upper part shows the specks of sunlight penetrating the open panel structure of the open space.

The recorded time encompasses the play of light and shadow happening during six hours and is shown in a sequence of 8 min.

Tectonic sextet

Tectonic sextet

2019

260x170x110

Two chairs, a stool and a table

Concrete cast on steel mesh, video mapped footage

Mapping by: Ilkka Pitkänen

The Work displays individual video footage taking while working to break a bathroom floor due to a water accident. Two jackhammers simultaneous breaking the concrete and revealing step by step the underlying structure.

The footage is than video mapped onto a series of furniture pieces that are made of the very same material. The installation of concrete plates that were molded into steel mesh refers to the working process while elevating the working surface towards a resting place. 

The nature of walls

 

The nature of walls

2019

HD video

00:06:23

performers: Marja Patrikainen &Thomas Westphal

camera: Thomas Westphal

edit and composition: Sebastian Ziegler

The video is compost of seven different videos displaying the demolition of walls. Each individual wall had been pre painted with chroma green paint. This allowed me to designate these areas in the editing process to be transparent. I layered the individual footage behind each other. In the process of overlapping breaking activity the video creates a frenzy of different compositions.

Paradigm shift

Paradigm shift

2019

HD video 3:33 min

Two channel video installation,

The video shows a dense clowd of black and white shapes that slowly dance across the walls and slowly desolve into single particels. The footage was shot while working with a jackhammer on an old bath tub. The white surface is the emalie and the black colour comes from the iron oxide. What was in the making a earsplitting brutal exercise turned into a mesmerizing hypnotic dance.

Vanishing Point

Vanishing point

2019

HD video, duration 00:06:42

In the video I had to remove a big wall section between to offices. By just placing camera and blue light in one of these rooms and starting the breaking job this video was created. I have done similar works by painting walls with chromatic green to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene.

This one I like because of its simplicity and powerful visual feel.

Wax on Wax off

Wax on Wax off

2019

2 channel video

I was building a set of machines in my studio that are inspired by early methods of mechanical movements and transition. These machines are idling ahead and performing tirelessly repeating motions.

I took video of this set up and projected it here on the gallery wall. The wall was painted black but during the opening I painted certain areas to drive these shy creatures in the light.

Delete all duplicates

Delete all duplicates

2019

Video object

Table, projection, screws

190x120x50 cm

I got this idea for this work while preparing for a studio visit of 28 students from the Art academy. I was mend to let the students see how artist work in practice and to see different working methods. It’s a fact that many ideas originate from very banal activities such as sorting through material like a big box of screws that had to be sorted out. I created a setting to record this video and had everybody help with the sorting. This was done in 8 min. and interesting footage was created.

The video is projected on a table with the exact measurements of the original sorting area.

Extension

Extension

2019
HD video
Duration 00:08:21

The video has been taking in the late autumn in the marina in Lapland. Against a romantic evening setting we can observe construction machines building a wave breaker. On an absurdly small path of piled up stones the machines tireless advance their path into the sea.

Wall Licker

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Wall Licker

2019

150x260 cm

Video sculpture

Veneer, paint, video projection

A video sculpture with a unique tongue like shape that gets constantly repainted

The perforated surface with its holes partly swallows the light of the projection.

Come away with me in the night

" Come away with me in the night "

2018
kinetic light sculpture

Motor system, drywall with window, black
marabou feather boas, blue light, van, cut flowers, night sounds

The visitor enters a darkened space; its only light source is a barred window emanating moonlight, the faint scent of flowers and night sounds. Approaching the window one realizes that the bars are made by slowly moving strings of black feathers. Does one dare to push its face through this barrier to go out in the night?

video under: https://vimeo.com/290042087

Chroma Key

 
Chroma key

2017
HD video
Duration 03:54


https://vimeo.com/213145845

Chroma key is a recent work that deals with the dichotomy of two realities that I am experiencing as artist. Usually my time is stretched between artistic work at my studio and work at construction sites for pure economic reasons. As sculptor I find a lot of beauty in materials and working processes that often flow in and out my working practice. In my artwork I often find the need to modify gallery space to my needs and apply same materials and skills from the alter universe. When I face an exhibition the location is an important aspect that I take into account while planning and creating the artwork. Lately I just love to cut the knot between the two worlds and blur the boundaries between art and labor.
I visited the working place early in the morning before the work starts and set up the lights, camera equipment in front of walls that according to he architectural drawings have to be removed. I paint in these areas in Chroma key green. This technique has been use in movies to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video a color range. The green foreground footage is made transparent, allowing separately filmed background footage or a static image to be inserted into the scene.
We trash the wall while being filmed. The footage I gain is inspiring to work with.
It brings planners, designers, developers and workers to wonder about the unique quality of their own work and of the built environment.

Drummers: Niklas Faupel, Son Pham.
Breaking by: Thomas Westphal and Marja Patrikainen.
Editing: Sari Palosaari and Sebastian Ziegler

When Gravity Fails

 

When gravity fails

2016
video kinetic object
steel, screens, motors, electronics  

 https://vimeo.com/201820021

 

The work explores playful interaction between object and image. The two video screens show a person engaged in freestyle football. His balancing skills make the ball spin effortless in the air.
The displays themselves serve as counter weights of a ceiling mounted apparatus that keeps them in equilibrium. Motors give small impulses to shift the balance from side to side.

Peripheral

   

Peripheral

2015
210x210x4cm
video-kinetic object
Wood, diamonds, motors, animation

https://vimeo.com/148131403

 

The Video kinetic object “Peripheral” consists of a motorized diamond studded ring that slowly rotates and a video projected animation. The hand drawn animation is based on motion studies of an athlete performing in a German wheel. The German wheel is an athletic devise, namely a free moving aluminum ring that allows the athlete to spin and rotate using his or hers own gravity and momentum for speed and motion.

For me as a sculptor it has been of greater interest because it also resembles a sort of vitruvien study of the space a human can physically inhabit. When the projected animation reaches the outer boundaries of the circle the projected light sends a sparkle of light reflections bouncing off from the diamond studs.

Yo Bro

 

Yo Bro

2015
Video-kinetic object
Motors, monitors, custom shield, Arduino, synchronized Raspberry Pi, metal, aluminum

https://vimeo.com/148069927

Yo Bro what's up! How you doing? A handshake is a form of non-verbal communication. The handshake is thought by some to have originated as a gesture of peace by demonstrating that the hand holds no weapon. Two screens running on a sliding rail system approach and distance themselves from each other. At the moment of overlapping the hands engage in a delicate dance of intertwining moves.

Electronic expertise by Gregoire Rousseau
Video software and coding by Eetu Huhtala
Handshake performance by Jakob Johannson and Felipe de Avila

Iconics and Beats

Iconics and Beats

2015
HD video
duration 06:21

https://vimeo.com/128838362

 

In the video “Iconics and beats” we observe a group of people engaged in a game of gestures. Based on a German drinking game the participants count up to 21 whereby each number is combined with a certain gesture. These gestures grow in complexity during each cycle the game is replayed.

Performers, left to right, Uli Westphal, Kai Weitenberg, Kristen Cooper, Jan Westphal

Condencing facts from the ripple of nuances

2013

Video/ kinetic installation

I Pad, 23”W TFT Color LCD screen, pumps, dc motors, steel, Plexiglas, water, typographical material  computer,audio speakers and custom software

Video is unquestionable the most strongest (captivating) media in fine arts today but the enchantment of a moving image burns hot and short. I work with this media from a very strong sculptural perspective. I have been searching for a ways that video could enrich my work and decided that the combination of moving image and kinetic sculpture provides an interesting angle.

Kinetic art had its prime time in the 50th and 60th and has been considerable dormant for a long time after that. Lately it seems that many young sculptors are starting to pick up on kinetics again. One reason for that is the rapid development of user friendly soft and hardware components as well as the low costs to purchase electronically components to experiment with. Also artists like myself have developed their own kind of “Gypsy technology” whereby we cannibalize existing consumer electronics to make them useable in our art projects. It is possible to learn the basics in short time and find net communities that provide help and inspiration. Being independent from industry and outside expertise and the straight application to ones work make it fairly easy to integrate ideas of movement, light and sound to ones working process.

VIDEOKAFFE has been playroom for likeminded artist that challenged, cooperated, inspired and pushed each other into create something new and surprising.

Personally this unique exhibition concept has been one thrilling experience and I owe big time to the collaborating colleges as well as to Sebastian Ziegler the Curator of this event,

 Starting point for my work was an application for a smart phone. I have to say that I was a baby in this field and a prepaid phone of the most modest design had been sufficient for me. Suddenly finding myself in possession of this sophisticated gizmo, I searched for ways to make it work to my benefit and make my live easier.

As German having moved to Finland its naturally the language that creates boundaries.

So I was quite interested in this field. I found an application (no advertisement but you can find the name in the appendix) that recognizes printed words using optical character recognition and instantly translates these words into the desired language.

The words are displayed in the original context on the original background, and the translation is performed in real-time without connection to the Internet.

Once the program has identified letters, it calculates their rotation and the perspective from which the viewer is seeing them. Then it tries to recognize each letter by consulting a library of reference font sets. (This application was created to help tourists understand signs and menus, and is not 100% accurate). It’s a bit like starting to type into the goggle search field and with every added letter you get the suggestion of “ Do you mean this?”

At one day I was sitting at the waterfront of the marina in Vuosaari, killing time browsing to my apps and in a playful attempt I activated the upper mentioned app and directed the built-in camera of the phone to the sea. Sun was shining and a mild wind was rippling the surface of the water. A lot of contrast that day between the tops and valleys of the waves.

Suddenly the program was trying to read meaning to the random noise of the waves and words popped up in the display. The oracle like messages in the water mesmerized me for hours. This happened because the program runs the image through a filter to remove shadows. Text is sharp, so it removes whatever is not sharp and makes the image black and white, to help figure out where letters are. Still, these are black and white contrast that may or may not be letters. The unpredictable game is on. For VIDEOKAFFE I wanted to recreate a version of this captivating experience.

The original idea was to have a high-resolution wifi cam scanning the water surface of the nearby Aurajoki canal and have the program running its results by way of a beamer.

Time and budget were not favorable at this point so I decided to go for a more sculptural laboratory setting.

The Plexiglas pool (60x90x10 cm) inside the gallery contains app.40 liters of water.

Two pumps and two additional dc motor powered paddles kept the water in motion.

Hovering above is an adjustable arm that is holding an I tablet running the application

Its camera lens is pointed down at the pools water surface. The Tablet is linked by a hdtv cable to a wall mounted flat screen that shows its interface in bigger scale.

This set up was a purely theoretical approach and the results were meager.

What nature is really good at is to deliver a lot of visual noise and my little pool could not match it.

The next step I took was to add submersible plastic letters floating in the water.

These were partly traced but clogged the pump filtration system and collected in certain areas. Next approach was to have silicon molded floating letters. This created surprising results especially because the constant moving water surface distorted the textual content. The program now is running in a Mode that tries to translate from English into German. I hope that you can enjoy the results at this stage and I will surprise you with a more sophisticated version in near future but for now its Videokaffe -its fresh from the oven.

So having tried to explain my approach towards the underlying concept of the exhibition and the way this work developed I have to point out an additional aspect. The work at this particular exhibition had a soundscape that was created by the brasilian artis Fernando Visockis Macedo. This is his statement :

“My work is created, imagined and thought over sound. How to search for hidden sounds surrounding us and amplify it aesthetically; how to bring different sounds to the field of visuality; how to affect the spectators perception by playing and sculpting with such an abstract rich full material?

My research is then, in a wider sense, really close to translation somehow. That's why when Thomas first told me his idea about the installation, I could, on the very first moment, see a breach for adding a new layer without changing the concept of the work abruptly: translating into sound the same material that is being used for generating the text.For that I developed a code for Pure Data that seeks for the pixels with most luminance in a live webcam pointed to plexiglass. The ripples of the water keep on changing these pixels with most luminance, generating a great input for manipulating a synthesizer and for a sound sample collected from a water stream back in my country, translating a simple light variation into an abstract moving soundscape, a generative sound piece that reinforces and adds new context to the installation.

KEKKU

Kekku
2013
Video/kinetic Installation
3 Screens, 3 Blueray players, DC Motor, Steel
300x60x40 cm

The work KEKKU was made for the exhibition “Terveisiä perheestä” (Greetings from the family), that took place at Gallery Huuto in August 2013. The exhibition dealt with issues revolving around family and the protagonists in the video footage are my wife, our daughter and I. 
The video shows certain body parts of us sitting on a swing. The vertical aliened screens show us swinging together. The whole set up itself swings back and forward by a DC motor.
The video footage is of different length and generates constantly surprising twists especially because the image freezes for some second in the end of the loop.
While we were shooting the scene we also realized that it actually was the first time that all three of us were on the playground together. It dont mean a thing if it aint got the swing.

 
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Hand On Wire

http://vimeo.com/67590727

2012

Video/kinetic sculpture

Motors, plasma TV, 16 m rail system, metal construction, HD box

2x HD video footage, vertical and horizontal filmed

Duration of single clip 02:40 min

-filmed at Suvilahti, Helsinki and Temppeliaukio, Helsinki

Performers; Thomas Westphal, Niklas Faupel

Electronical Expertise: Gregoire Rousseau

Mechanical Support: Federico Ortegon Perez

 

The starting point for this work was video material that I shoot in summer 2011 at the Suvilahti industrial ground and at Oksasenkatu in Töölö. Because of the different nature of these places the format was chosen to be vertical (Töölös narrow tall streetscapes) and horizontal (Suvilahtis wide industrial scenery). In both locations we see a hand ropewalking electricity lines between buildings.

The videos are shown on a large plasma screen that moves along a 16 m long rail system from one side of the gallery wall to the other. In the end points the screen rotates from vertical to horizontal position and vice versa. Actually this unusual twist originated from the fact that I work with video from the perspective as a sculptor. While shooting the video material on site I did not consider yet that the horizontal/vertical shift would become a difficulty later on. After all I am quite satisfied that the solution to this problem

became an important aspect of the final work.

The distance of the rail system is corresponding to the distance of the original settings. Also the pace of the moving hand in the video image matches the speed of the moving screen. I used two different motor systems, one for the spatial movement and the other for the smooth rotation of the screen. 
A motivating idea behind the installation was a playful concern with space. It became a stage on witch the activities may it be musical or physical performed. What I brought to the space was actually an object installation that was formally constructed through the filter of documenting. The relationship with time, bringing one thing to another, how the exhibition space acts not only as a space as a time dimension as a document somehow.  

Vertigo en el corazón- Vertigo in the heart

 
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Vertigo en el corazón- Vertigo in the heart

https://vimeo.com/68515329

2012

Video/kinetic sculpture

Motors, video projector, HD box, metal construction, wind engines

2x HD video footage (GoPro action cameras, body strapped)

Duration of single clip 02:45 min/ 00.06 min

-filmed at Alexanderplatz, Berlin

Base-jump and camera: Uli Westphal

Electronical support: Gregoire Rousseau

The starting point for this work was video material that I shoot in Berlin in September 2012. My location was the 120meter high Park Inn Hotel at the Alexanderplatz in the heart of the city.
The video consists of a skyline view of Berlin and a base-jump sequence. All video was shoot with handheld and body strapped/helmet mounted Gopro HD cameras.
For displaying the video I was building a projection screen (224x124cm) with a steady mounted video projector at the end of a cone shaped 3-meter extension. This whole segment is hanging on ball bearing hinges mounted to a solid steel foundation. The screen is motor controlled and can be moved from vertical 90° to 180° angel. It happens in regular intervals that are set by relays and two different timing devises.
In the vertical position it shows the skyline of Berlin with the remarkable TV Tower. The video is slightly shaking and protruding steel elements and cables in the image give a hint to the viewer that it is taking from some sort of platform or building roof. Two strong wind engines behind the screen create a slightly unsettling atmosphere. Every 01:40 min the screen goes into almost 180° position. During this process it shows the perspective of a person free falling down the building facade. (In this case my brother Uli Westphal, that filmed this with body strapped cameras). The jump was professional supervised.
The two video files 02:45 and 00:06 min are played from HD box and are triggered by sensors in the mainframe. The work has been running over a period of 2 weeks and worked flawless during this time. On request of visitors the interval time was changed from original 4 min down to 3 min and finally to 1:50 min which seems to be the common border of visitors patience.

Elevated Jam

  Elevated Jam

http://vimeo.com/67594577

2012

HD, single channel video on screen

Duration 01:35 min

-filmed at Suvilahti, Helsinki

Performer Son Pham

 

The video was filmed in the industrial setting of Suvilahti a former energy production area in Sörnäinen, Helsinki. It encompasses nine buildings and two large gasometers.

The idea was to explore the given architecture in an unusual visual and acoustic way.

I was cooperating with three members of the German progressive metal band TrueFalse

that visited me for two weeks and put their musical expertise to practice.

In Elevated Jam, the protagonist Son Pham is drumming on the steel hull of a giant gas clock. During the play he slowly elevates upwards and with the ascent also the acoustic properties of the building start to change. Reaching the top not only the scenery widens up to us but also the perception of the architecture as such.

 

Live Wire

http://vimeo.com/67599042

2013

HD, single channel video on screen

Duration 03:58

-filmed at Suvilahti, Helsinki

Performer: Tra-My Pham

Sound: Samuli Tanner

My heart is a smoking hole in the ground

“My heart is a smoking hole in the ground.”
2011
HD Video
16:9
Duration 06.00 min


A sole survivor of a heavy party night has passed out facedown on a sofa.
Is he happy, lovesick, broke or drifting? One can only speculate about the figure that collapsed in a way that reminded me of a central element of a classical painting composition.

The unarranged human figure stays unknown to the spectator and remains till today unknown to me. The whole scenario is a found situation that was just put into perspective by the chosen camera angle. The rotating reflections of an invisible disco balls and music beats wash over the scenery.
The tempo, pitch and complexity of the sound changes with the rotating reflections that speed up, slow down and reverse. It can be best described as to belong to the “video game genre”, consisting of electronic sounds and drum sound samples it was originally made for a TV show called Ninja for kids. For the video it was further modified.
The music was composed by Samuli Tanner one of the bright young talents of Helsinki’s musical underground and internationally probably best known as one half of the dub step production team Clouds.