ARHIVE OF VIDEO WORKS 1996-2012A selection of videos and installations: |
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MATCH BOX VIDEO HAY CHANT GRASS CHANT NORDIC MOSH CANAL GLITCH PURGE 1, 2010 PURGE 2, 2010 ARKIPELAG, 2008 WEEPING PILLAR, 2006 DISCO TONIGHT? 2005 WHERE'S THAT PIG? 2005 LIVING PAINTINGS, 2005 OUKKIDOUKKI, 2005 VOYEUR, 2004 IN THE RAW, 2004 I AM UNKNOWING I MEMORIAL DAY, 2003 FOCAL POINT, 2003 BORDER, 2003 SERMON, 2002 SUNDAY I-III, 2002 THE CLEANING WOMAN, 2001 KOSMOS, 2001 TANJA SMOKES RED NORTH STATE, 2000 MOVING I, 1999 MOVING II, 1999 A WOMB OF ONE'S OWN. 1990 REDBLACKBLUE, 1999 TIME FROM NOW ON, 1996 THE PRINCESS, 1996 |
Single and multiple channel, documentaries, animations, experimental... an archive of a variety of videos, exhibited in galleries, museums or shown at film festivals...
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Made by Petra Martinez & Gunzi Holmström 2012, single channel, Full HD, dur 3 min. Made with stills taken on a matchbox camera (camera obscura). The video is about a nine year old boy and his surroundings in eastern Helsinki. Screenings: Lasten Slide-In Cinema, Helsinki, 2015 |
HAY CHANT
single channel, Full HD, dur. 1.17 min, 2011 A glitched chant of hay made by deliberate corruption of the digital code. The origin of the sound is a still from the video. Music by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen. Screenings: 3inch canvas, Jyväskylä Art Museum, Finland, 2011 In the collection of Jyväskylä Art Museum
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GRASS CHANT
single channel, Full HD, dur. 1.26 min, 2011 A glitched chant of grass made by deliberate corruption of the digital code. The origin of the sound is a still from the video. Music by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen Screenings: 3inch canvas, Jyväskylä Art Museum, Finland, 2011 In the collection of Jyväskylä Art Museum
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single channel, Full HD, dur. 3.06 min Music: John Blue The body of the actress is seducing urban landscape to melt into itself. A databending technique is used as a mean of reflection regarding the surrounding aesthetics and the traces of the architect's software in our environment. Screenings: Huuto gallery, Helsinki 2011
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single channel, Full HD, dur. 4.00 min Music: John Blue “Canal Glitch” deals with the aesthetics of modern urban planning through the beauty of data errors. During a data hacking process the pride of a new posh seafront residential district in Helsinki, the Uutela Canal became a poem of pixels reminding of Claude Monet’s paintings of water lilies. Screenings: Strange Love Moving Image Festival, London, 2015 This video is included in the Muu video DVD collection Muu ry
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DVD, 2009 A meditative abstract video, based on footage from the canals in Berlin. Screenings: Helsinki Kunsthall, 2010
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DVD, 2009 A meditative abstract video, based on footage from the canals in Berlin. Screenings: Helsinki Kunsthall, 2010
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ARKIPELAG
DVD, 2008 A cluster of islands, consisting of remaining parts of classical sculptures, are floating in an endless waterlike space. Although the theme is the constantly ongoing destruction of culture, the animation is beautiful and meditative. Collections: Pro Artibus Foundation, Finnish State Art Council, private collection |
WEEPING PILLAR The weeping column can be found in Aya Sophia in Istanbul . People stand in line to stick their fingers into a small niche and make a circle. It is said that if your finger emerges moist from the hole there, a wish can be granted. Screenings: 10th International
Istanbul Biennial, Turkey 2007
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DISCO TONIGHT? 2005, DVD single channel, dur 1 min, silent, (video postcard) I've collected SMS-messages sent around as jokes from mobile phones to mobile phones... Consisting of simple ASCII signs, they still manage to tell a story... This video describes the disco feeling on the ferry between Finland and Sweden in the ASCII language. Screenings:
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WHERE'S THAT PIG?, 2005, DVD single channel, dur 1 min (video postcard)
I've collected SMS-messages sent around as jokes from mobile phones to mobile phones... Consisting of simple ASCII signs, they still manage to tell a story... This video focuses on a figurine in a porn shop window. Screenings:
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LIVING PAINTINGS The videos were made for the exhibiton "Sediments", curated by Taru Elfving. Due to restauration, Turku Art Museum (Finland) was forced to move to temporary location for a couple of years. After all kind of difficulties, the museum re-opened again in April 2005. The invited artists were asked to comment on about the role and function of the art museum today. I used images from the permanent collections, all very well known both to the local people as well as in Finnish art history, and combined them with layers consisting of footage from the surroundings of the art museum - the streets, the traffic, the people, the shops. The videos are semi-abstract
loops. Shown on monitors, they were placed in different locations, such
as shop Screenings: Hanoi, Vietnam 2006
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TURKU GOES OUKKIDOUKKI Sound "sim speach" by Gun Holmström and Valter Kokot/Ingrid Ung. The videos were made for the exhibiton "Sediments", curated by Taru Elfving. Due to restauration, Turku Art Museum (Finland) was forced to move to temporary location for a couple of years. After all kind of difficulties, the museum re-opened again in April 2005. The invited artists were asked to comment on about the role and function of the art museum today. "Turku goes Oukkidoukki" uses the world and language of a computer game to create a social space for the art museum. Screenings: Vector: Game + Art Convergence, Propeller, Toronto, Canada, 2013
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VOYEUR The footage in Voyeur was filmed almost coincidentally. In summertime all kinds of people gather on the lawn around the Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum in Helsinki. I sat on the fourth floor and started to film people enjoying the sunlight, simply because the sight was so pleasant. Suddenly, in the corner of my eye, I noticed something odd - a lonely man sitting by himself just looking out of place. I started to follow his movements and mysterious things started to happen. What was he talking to the girls about? What strange object was he holding in his hand? Why did he seem so displaced? Voyeur is a story that told itself to me. Screenings:
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IN THE RAW Several years ago, I attended a lecture where the slides shown had no connection to the issue in question , or even to each other. The whole time I tried very hard to find some correlation because it seemed totally impossible that the images would have had nothing to do with what was being said. In In the Raw I used a similar technique. It is a kind of self-portrait, a video collage containing a wide range of footage and text from my own environment. It is a story about storytelling in different forms, a saga telling of -among other things - the spiritual aspect in everyday life. By combining elements with no apparent connections , I wanted to create a space that would allow for both the viewers' own associations and possibilities for new stories to evolve. I find distraction to be a useful tool for taking thoughts in unexpected directions. Screenings: |
I AM UNKNOWING I-III, part
I 2004, DVD three channel, dur. 1 min each, silent (video postcard) The three 1-minute video loops where made for the exhibition “Parameters of Fear” at the Muu Gallery in Helsinki 2004. The show examined manifestations of fear both a personal and social level. The original footage I chose from short clips from wars, news and movies available on the internet. While working with the material, images with obvious connections to the Christian theme of suffering started to appear... Screenings:
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MEMORIAL DAY 2003, DVD single channel, dur. 1 min, silent, (video postcard) The video was made in New Smyrna Beach, Florida, USA during a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts as an observation of the surroundings. Screenings:
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FOCAL POINT Concept, film and
editing: Gun Holmström Text from the video: The text is based on the censored parts from "Unnown Soldier" (1954), a novel by the Finnish author Väinö Linna. The complete version was published in "Sotaromaani" 2000. "Unnown Soldier" tells about when Finland was at war with the Soviet Union 1941-44 and is the most commonly read book in Finland. I've changed the text a bit, to make it fit in the womans mouth, and to give the impression that she could be speaking of her own life, a divorce process perhaps, or something like that. It's fascinating me that the text was something that couldn't be published for political reasons not so long ago. In the video it's even harder to understand since the sentences I've chosen to put in the video are "floating" without their original context. Screenings:
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BORDER 2003, DVD single channel, loop, silent Border is made of photographs from the border between Finland and the Soviet Union during the last war. This part is more abstract and meditative - but as in Focal Point, the enemy is there, but can't be seen. Screenings:
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SERMON A video portrait of a minister in a remote congregation. Combined with the sermon a voice-over is telling a story about a magician. Screenings:
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SUNDAY I-III (Cross,
death, resurrection) Screenings:
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THE CLEANING WOMAN 2001, DVD, installation with two monitors or projectors, loop, silent The starting point for "The Cleaning Woman" was my life in a suburb in Helsinki. The orginal footage is about the elderly woman who was cleaning the stairs in the house where I lived. The documentary part is shown together with a black and white animation about the same person. Screenings:
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KOSMOS I've known "Cosmos" since I was a child, we are born in the same little village in the archipelago in the south of Finland. He is still living there together with his mother and father. In the video he is presenting his view of the universe. "People like to think that the atom is very small, that the sun is very big, that the stars are very far away and that the universe is vast. But in fact the small doesn't exist without the big, and the big doesn't exist without the small, everything is connected. I don't really know if there is any difference between what's big and small. Maybe there are no proportions at all." "I wouldn't say that it's impossible to travel in time and space psychically, but because you are earthbound you become a sort of a shaman trying to see the Spirit - trying to "compose the Universe". That's not science any more, it's poetry." Screenings:
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TANJA SMOKES RED NORTH STATE, A video portrait of my friend Tanja who is blind. A glimpse of her everyday life with contains a lot of solitude. Screenings: Electric Visions, St Petersburg, Russia and Bilbao, Spain, 2003 ; Turku Art Academy Gallery, Turku, Finland, 2002; Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere, Finland, 2002; Gallery 54, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2001; "9e Biennale de lmage en Mouvement", prize candidate, Geneve, Switzerland', 2001 ; "Les Rencontres de Video", Annecy, France; Kakelhallen Gallery, Mariehamn, Aalandia; View02, Helsinki; Video Garden, Helsinki + other
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MOVING I 2000, videoanimation, DVD, loop, silent Breathing... The video shows an empty room getting stuffed with furniture, until the process is reversed and the room is empty again. Screenings:
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A WOMB OF ONE'S OWN
1999, DVD, dur 12.35 min. A video portrait of a young mother who is pregnant again. She talks about her decision to let the child be brought up by the two fathers, a gay couple. Screenings: New Zealand, 2006; Hyvinkää Art Museum, Hyvinkää, Finland 2006; Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki, 2005; Criss-Cross, arr NIFCA, several countries 2004-2005; International Film Festival on Gender & Sexual Plurality, Bombay, India, 2004 ; Kettupäivät (film festival), Helsinki, 2003; View03, festival on new Finnish video art, Helsinki, 2003; Kunsthalle Lophem, Belgium, 2002 ; CAC, Vilnius, 2002 ; Sara Hildén Museum, Tampere, Finland, 2002 ; Museum of Finnish Photography, Helsinki, 2002; different / diverse, Venice, Italy, 2001; VERA, (film festival), Mariehamn, Finland,2001 ; Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki, 2000 StandArt, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2000 ; Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, Helsinki, 1999
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MOVING II 2000, videoanimation, DVD, loop, silent Houses (from different areas in Helsinki) covering the face of a young girl. Screenings:
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REDBLACKBLUE In "Red, Black and Blue" I wanted to use a politically coloured palette for looking at the root values in my society. For the project I have interviewed three men, each representing different kinds of ideological thinking. Each interview is "coloured" in red, blue and black according to the social concerns of these men. The red and blue men are experienced "thinkers", and the black one is a young boy who calles himself an anarchist, but he is a bit uncertain about himself and his views. Screenings:
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1998, three-channel installation, DVD, loop. Duration 45 min. The numbers are a combination of three digital que displays filmed in a grocery store, in the unemployment office and in a bank. Screenings: In the collection of Helsinki City Art Museum
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THE PRINCESS I recorded my own image as a silhouette on top of a famous "open-hearted" TV interview of Princess Diana. I am the anti-Diana, the flip side of the ideal womanhood. One cannot exist without the other. While Diana is pouring her heart out to the general public, the shadowgraph is gorging herself with food. The comparison refers to the humane imperfection which finally made Diana even more perfect as an icon of womanhood and martyr of love. Screenings: |
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© Gun Holmström 2020
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