Karo Szmit

Map (Tallinn-Projects)

2012-01-15T17:42:00.004+01:00

Wall drawing, 5 monitors, digital photography, video, miniature models

produced for the group exhibition "Tallinz"
11.01. - 09.03.2012
Atelierhaus Salzamt, Linz

The installation combines four of the completed works and material compilations I produced during my five month stay in Tallinn in 2009.

Always Everything

2012-01-15T12:59:00.006+01:00

5 postcards

produced for the group exhibition

„Finding magic in everyday madness“
23.11.2011 - 12.01.2012
Kunstraum Goethestrasse xtd, Linz

Five personal special moments created by situations with accidental soundtracks, presented as hand-written micro-stories on postcards.

The work deals with collecting everyday observations as an art research practice.

"Teenage dirtbag" is playing while I (30+) am waiting for a job interview at a catering company, removing cat hair from my clothes.

"Rock me amadeus" is playing as I'm entering the Toronto airport, arriving from Vienna.

"Time to say goodbye" is playing in a discount supermarket 5 minutes before closing time.

Definitions of nothing

2012-01-15T12:31:00.006+01:00

15 post-its

produced for the experimental art fair "METAmART - The market models", part of "METAmART. Kunst und Kapital"

16.11.2011 - 19.02.2012
Künstlerhaus, Vienna

Communication breakdown (project sketches)

2012-01-15T12:19:00.004+01:00

9 post-its

produced for the experimental art fair "METAmART - The market models", part of "METAmART. Kunst und Kapital"

16.11.2011 - 19.02.2012
Künstlerhaus, Vienna

The initial point for this work is my interest in big general terms like „everything“, „nothing“, „whatever“. I try to find diagrammatic forms of representation which - seeming significant at the first sight – serve as a framework for different context and content due to their universality and reduction.

bar chart

2011-12-22T20:21:00.003+01:00

wall drawing, black paint
Karo Szmit 2011

Created for the exhibition "RES PUBLIC SPACE" at In der Kubatur des Kabinetts - der Kunstsalon im fluc, Vienna.

The work reacts on the location being both an art exhibition and social space. Bar visitors can sit along two adjoining walls. By turning these walls into an axis diagram, people appear as it's content.

You Lunz - You have to listen

2011-12-22T19:17:00.004+01:00

Performances in public space, video
Karo Szmit & Stephanie Mold 2011

„You Lunz - You have to listen“ was produced for the exhibition „You Lunz – We listen“ at the Amonhaus in Lunz am See (A), concluding an artist residency with Stephanie Mold at the wellenklaenge festival.

The initial point for the work was an old polish fok song I heard during the festival. Being a pole living in Austria I decided to explore my „slavic soul“ and to learn to sing the song. Performing a fragment of „kare konie“ („white horses“) at different spots in Lunz's public space I attempted to blend folklore from a polish to an austrian mountain area.

Suggest a profile picture

2011-10-10T16:42:00.003+02:00

Performance in public space
Karo Szmit 2011

Suggest a profile picture is a variation of emoticonize me (2009). Once again I perform as a street portrait artist referring to the imagery of an online social network. Pretending to portray people while drawing a default profile picture, my aim is to play with notions of self-expression and individuality.

"Suggest a profile picture" appears as an option below the default profile picture on a facebook profile page. Those users who did not choose to upload a profile picture are represented by the white silhouette of a male or female head on a light blue background. It may seem they didn't care about the opportunity to stand out visually. A former facebook default picture used to show a question mark, thus somehow pointing out that the lack of a profile picture was a flaw.

By staging a street portrait artist performance I attempt to shift ideas of individual expression online and in the so-called real world. While persons sit patiently in anticipation of a unique hand drawn portrait by an artist, they receive an unique hand drawn facebook default profile picture. Though I try to render the proportions and outlines of the head as accurate as possible, every picture looks different. The portrayed persons might upload the drawing on their facebook profile and receive a quasi semi-individual profile picture.

Who says it takes two to party

2011-10-10T15:36:00.006+02:00

Mixed media installation, performance, video
Karo Szmit 2011

I developed this project during an artist residency at the Common Pulse Festival (Durham, Ontario, Canada). Five artists were asked to produce works which would be connected by a common pulse signal.

My idea occured as a reaction to the architecture of the gallery. I utilized an elevated storage room with an opening towards the exhibition space for a light installation. Red, green and blue light spots - blinking to the common pulse – were visible through a white curtain.

Besides the installation's physical connection to the common pulse I attempted to give it the appearance of a mysterious party room. In preparation for the exhibition I recorded myself performing karaoke inside the insallation. I deliberately chose classic pop songs about loneliness, alienation and isolation.

Instead of displaying the documentation of the one-woman-party during the exhibiton I uploaded the clips on Youtube and presented flyers showing a screenshot. By making it more difficult to capture the artwork at large my intention was to deal with self-expression and self-exposure during a performance considering the significance of online social networks. Shifiting the possibility to view my performance to some place outside the exhibition space increases and decreases the voyeuristic aspect at the same time.

Things I never did - diagram

2010-12-18T23:33:00.013+01:00

created for the exhibiton

"Things we never did"
Künstlervereinigung MAERZ, Linz
15.12.2010 - 18.02.2011

idea / concept: Beate Rathmayr

detail

"Ein Archiv, in dem Dinge, die nie getan wurden, für einige Wochen zu sehen sein werden. Eine Sammlung aus geschriebenen und skizzierten Fragmenten macht verkannte, unerfüllte und unfertige Ideen sichtbar."

"An archive where things that have never been done will be displayed for a couple of weeks. A collection of written an drafted fragments makes unrecognized, unfulfilled and unfinished ideas visible."
(from the flyer)

Ich stelle nicht realisierte Ideen und nicht abgeschlossene Projekte der letzten Jahre anhand eines Achsendiagramms dar. Kurze Beschreibungen und Skizzen sind als Schnittpunkte zweier Achsen positioniert: Die horizontale Achse zeigt den Zeitpunkt des Einfalls an, die vertikale die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Realisierung als Prozentzahl. Die einzelnen Punkte sind weiters in Kategorien unterteilt, je nach dem, auf welcher Stufe der Umsetzung sich die Projekte befinden (Idee, Materialsammlung, Rohversion etc.).

My unrealized and unfinished ideas from the past years are displayed as a graph. Brief descriptions and sketches are situated within two axes: The horizontal axis describes the time when the idea occured, the vertical axis shows the probability of the realisation. The single entries are also divided into categories based on the stage of their development (idea, collection of material, raw version etc.)

our burning need

2010-12-18T22:38:00.010+01:00

Drawing, 1,5 x 7m.
Created for the re-opening of Kunstraum Goethestraße xtd, Linz, 2.12.2010.

Referring to the topic of the year, "There is a wild thing in all of us", I drew a panorama view of the lighting in the Kunstraum Goethestraße exhibition space as I saw it from the worm's-eye view sitting and gradually spinning in the center of the room.

RADIO KOLM

2010-12-18T20:49:00.007+01:00

screenshots from a facebook interaction.

I originally intended to ask the owner of the electronic store "Radio Kolm" in Vienna if they would play the Estonian radio station "Raadio Kolm". For the time being I satisfied my need to communicate this coincidence of names on facebook.

M

2010-12-18T20:14:00.007+01:00

created for the program "3 Minuten aus dem Leben einer Stadtpflanze/ 3 minutes in the life of a city plant" at the exhibition and pocket film presentation
"Urban Gardening & Pocketfilms"

24.09. - 03.10.2010
wienstation, Vienna

1:46 min, filmed with a mobile phone

Reality/ Possibility

2010-12-18T13:08:00.005+01:00

dispersion paint on board, approx. 4,5 x 2,5m
created for the group exhibition

"Die edlen Früchte und die Gouvernante"
(curated by Ursula Hübner)

Schüttkasten Harmannsdorf
17.07. - 19.09.2010

Room waiting

2010-12-17T11:28:00.015+01:00

exhibition
Asifakeil, Quartier 21, Museumsquartier, Vienna
08.07.2010 - 31.07.2010

image from "roadtruckers"

2 Monitors, adhesive foil. Selection of animated films showing empty spaces. Waiting rooms depict a song about the feeling of freedom on the road ("roadtruckers"). Monitors in computer rooms serve as projection screens for screensavers ("intercut", "screensaver/desktop visuals").
In reference to the video "roadtruckers" I covered one of the exhibition space´s glass panels with the grey-white-checked pattern known as the illustration of transparency in photoshop. I left the originally white squares transparent, intending to create a mixture between the "real" and the symbolic transparency.

more:
http://www.mqw.at/de/programm/detail/?event_id=5872

removing transparency

structuring necessity pt. 2

2010-12-17T11:01:00.013+01:00

2 diagrams, wall drawings, created for the group exhibition
"How much exchange can you stand?"

06.07.2010 - 17.09.2010

One year after the first visit from England and a presentation in the Bluecoat Gallery in Liverpool, the results of an exchange between Linz and Liverpool are to be shown in the Künstlervereinigung MAERZ and the Atelierhaus Salzamt

Atelierhaus Salzamt

Atelierhaus Salzamt, detail

Künstlervereinigung MAERZ

making of:

watch large version on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XnQrLb7Ly0

remember me pt. 3

2010-06-03T15:01:00.004+02:00

performance at the opening of "neu im MAERZ"
25.5.10
Künstlervereinigung MAERZ, Linz/A

remember me pt. 2

2010-06-03T14:38:00.003+02:00

performance at the opening of "global studio"
8.4.10
the bluecoat, Liverpool

structuring necessity pt. 1

2010-06-03T14:16:00.005+02:00

"global studio"
group exhibition
9.4.10 - 20.6.10
the bluecoat, Liverpool

diagram, 2 x 1,5 m, wall drawing, pencil, textliner

“Structuring Necessity 2” is part of the project “riPOSTe”, a cooperation of female artists from Linz/A and Liverpool/UK. The project aims to create networks among former European Capitals of Culture. Group exhibitions take place in both cities.

My work deals with the topic of networking or the desire for global networking. Since the display of 14 artworks represents the creation of international networks, I decided to connect the artworks with each other too and to search for existing similarities. By doing this I respond to the quest for closer connections, adding another layer to it.

The work consists of a 2 x 1,5m layout of the exhibiton drawn on the wall. It shows term clouds instead of artworks, generated from the texts about the artworks with a tag-cloud software. Due to the reduction the tag clouds seem to combine exemplary keywords from the vocabulary of art, transferable to any other exibition. The works are linked by means of their descriptions. Recurring terms are connected by lines. The resulting diagram shows a compact, hardly legible network. The depiction of connectivity as such outweighs the content.

Tallinna Kivituvid (Tallinns´stone pigeons)

2010-01-24T16:33:00.003+01:00

produced for the group exhibition "Minu kallis paranoia" ("My dear paranoia")
by Estonian Media Artists Union
Vaal gallery, Tallinn
24.11. - 12.12.2009
www.martu.org

There is a special feature in the cityscape of Tallinn: Stone barriers in the shape of pigeons.
I decided to count them and to create a map of Tallinn reduced to the positions of the pigeons. I made small models which will be placed all over the gallery space. The originally massive and immobile objects will again be in peoples´ way, but now less visible and therefore exposed and vulnerable.

Remember Me

2009-11-14T21:50:00.004+01:00

Performance
Project for GLOBAL CONTAINER IX
12 Nov. 2009, Culture Factory Polymer, Tallinn
www.artcontainer.ee

Performance. Some time ago I started collecting screenshots of the „remember me“ checkboxes which often appear as an option during logging onto webpages. Besides its practical function the phrase reminded me of a desperate entreaty not to be forgotten. The simple possibility to decide to be remembered seems like a trick within the anonymous online world.
I was wondering what or who else one could address with the demand „remember me“. During an art event I performed as a fake doorwoman and gave visitors a stamp with the „remember me“ – checkbox.

emoticonize me - some results

2009-10-01T16:14:00.003+02:00

Project for Plektrum Festival
Tallinn 24.09. - 04.10.2009
www.plektrumfestival.ee

emoticonize me

2009-09-28T12:36:00.007+02:00

Project for Plektrum Festival
Tallinn 24.09. - 04.10.2009
www.plektrumfestival.ee

"The idea to my project appeared when I discovered that Skype has been developed in Estonia. I decided to transfer a part of the Skype iconography into the physical dimension. I will perform as a street portrait artist, but under the restriction that I will interpret peoples´ faces as Skype emoticons. By doing this I want to compare the questions of individual expression in different fields of interaction. The translation of an original emotion into its symbolic equivalent in the online world also occurs in the portraying process. In the portrait however the emoticon regains an individual touch of uniqueness because of the artist´s handwriting. An interesting point for me is also the play with expectation and disappointment. There will not be any mentionable similarity to the person in the emoticon. But it is a face in the end."

Additionally I am making animated versions of the emoticons and also send them to the portrayed persons:

http://www.youtube.com/user/higherboredom

the maximum possible indifference diagram

2009-08-15T23:58:00.000+02:00

Wolkendiagramm/ cloud diagram

2009-06-22T17:16:00.012+02:00

Ceiling design for the café in the International Atelierhaus Salzamt, Linz/A.

first sketch

The drawing presents a cloud reaching over the arched roof, as a reference to baroque ceiling painting. Several details overlap the cloud like intersections and turn it into a diagram - clouds in different contexts.
Some images show clouds in the narrower sense, other ones dust and clouds of smoke, contrails, dust bunnies or the internet cloud (the internet is mostly depicted as a cloud in computer network diagrams).

Achtung

2009-06-22T16:59:00.003+02:00

Video
L: 05:53 min

Produced for "Filiale Auwiesen" by the Stadtwerkstatt, part of the "Festival of Regions", Linz.

"In 2009, in collaboration with Linz 09 Cultural Capital of Europe, the Festival of Regions will be oriented toward the southern edge of the city of Linz, along the Traun River, with focus on the satellite town of Auwiesen and the residential complexes of solarCity."
(www.fdr.at)

www.filialeauwiesen.at

Hello Gümüşhane

2009-06-22T16:43:00.004+02:00

Video
directed by: Stephanie Mold, Karo Szmit
Camera, Editing: Karo Szmit
L: 45 min
A 2009

„The major of Gümüşhane, a town in Eastern Anatolia, visited Lentos Museum of Modern Art in Linz and fell in love with the chairs. I know that because I was working as a museumsguard watching him. Instead of using those chairs as functional accessoires, he was inpsecting them as if they were part of the exhibiton. Then he told me that he was paying a visit to Linz as there is a Turkish community from Gümüşhane living here and that he would like to buy some of the chairs for his town. Unfortunately they were not for sale.
After he left I started to ask myself how Gümüşhane might look like.
So I decided to travel there by bus to Gümüşhane to bring him a chair as a present, tracing back the roots of a part of the Turkish population of Linz. During the trip I was wearing my museumsuniform which put me into the role of a performer. A museumsguard leaving the homogenic museumslandscape going on a more than 50 hours lasting roadtrip - with a chair.“
(Stephanie Mold)

roadtruckers

2008-10-08T19:38:00.004+02:00

music clip for folklabor (angelika köhlermann/ vienna)

sound stories part 5

2008-10-08T19:13:00.006+02:00

sound stories, a project by feedback & disaster
watch video here:
http://www.feedbackanddisaster.net/article.php?id=1737

or:

Red Peaks and Green Spotted Ball

2008-06-09T20:00:00.004+02:00

Animation for the exhibition "Leben im Strafraum", Lentos Kunstmuseum, Linz

A project by qujOchOE for the UEFA Euro
http://www.lentos.at/de/45_1640.asp
http://www.qujochoe.org/

I love possibilities

2008-06-09T19:54:00.002+02:00

fineline on paper, 2007

site specific

2008-04-05T15:07:00.002+02:00

temporary installation, video (mute)
Karo Szmit 2007

project for the final exhibition of art workshop "catching passages"*, Contemporary art gallery of the Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania.

*Casino Luxembourg - Forum d´art contemporain (Luxembourg)
Centre culturel Kulturfabrik (Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxembourg)
Brukenthal Museum (Sibiu, Rumänien)

www.artworkshop.lu
http://www.boringbutnecessary.blogspot.com/

intercut

2008-04-05T14:59:00.001+02:00

Animation
Karo Szmit 2007
sound: Bernd Oppl

Trailer for the Crossing Europe Filmfestival 2007, Linz/A

The themes are inspired by intercuts in Movies, athmospherical filling-scenes without action, for example glances towards horizons, sunsets, water.
Moving indoors, you see video pictures of artificial light situations popping up as screensavers on computer monitors . This film deals with the meaning of pictures between artistic aims and decoration.

"Szmit‘s animation film intercut starts with a bird‘s-eye view of the airport. Later the outward view to the sea is contrasted with the inward view to monitors displaying different images. In the end the camera glides into a movement reflecting the beginning across an extension cord with multiple sockets lying on the floor with various electrical cords attached. Electrical power network and the international flight route network now seem to be connected in a mysterious, fractal way."
(Crossing Europe catalogue)

Le Grand Content

2008-04-05T14:57:00.000+02:00

Animation
Clemens Kogler & Karo Szmit 2006
sound: Aphex Twin
narrator: André Tschinder

Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand 'association-chain-massacre'. which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more. Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.

file is either

2008-04-05T14:53:00.000+02:00

Animation (mute)
Karo Szmit 2005

expressions of failure during data processing on the computer. this short film deals with the topic of unexistence in general and within the virtual space.

-probieren Sie andere Stichwörter

2008-04-05T14:44:00.000+02:00

Animation (engl. "-try different keywords")
Karo Szmit 2004
sound: _radio magenta

As samples for the pictures I used photos from the internet, collected in view of in- and outdoors, which are defined by perseverative details and thus convey contents like work, privacy or romantic desire.

My interest is based on finding ways to illustrate static scenes lacking active performers. references to reality sneak into the drawings like the drafts presentiment of its future execution.

"Portrayed (image) search in the Internet, strolling in the form of an associatively steered keyword entry, implied possibility of interactive participation. The view into the void, intimated by a minimum of perspective and detail. "

(description from a festival)

Kasztany/Kastanien

2008-04-05T14:37:00.001+02:00

Video (engl. "chestnuts")
Karo Szmit 2001

An interview with a polish man living in Austria.

"(...) We get an insight in rigidly fixed ways of thinking, far beyond any political actualization. In this way, Kasztany/Chestnuts does not only differ formally, but also in its argumentation, pleasantly different from the usual reporting in Austrian broadcasting. While the ostensible claim to objectivity covers up consensual national reporting on Austrian broadcasting, Kasztany/Chestnuts presents without assuming a conclusion: an offensive statement against the creation of national myths."
(W. Widerhofer in the catalogue “Grenzziehungen ...was nicht zusammengehört”)

part 1

part 2

electric phenomena

2008-04-05T14:31:00.000+02:00

Animation
Karo Szmit & Bernd Oppl 2001
sound: to rococo rot ans i-sound

originally part of an advertisement for the music festival "4020" in Linz/A

Shy visuals

2008-04-05T14:19:00.000+02:00

Animation
Karo Szmit 2004

Visuals for the concert "Die Welt ist nicht genug" by Austrian popgroup Shy, Landestheater Linz (3 from 13 clips)

"Kein Mann auf dem Mond"

"fest steht"

"popsong"

fog: pneumonia (draft)

2008-04-05T14:06:00.000+02:00

Video + Animation
Karo Szmit 2002

Sample from my VJing material. part of the video installation "...das, was uns mit der Welt verbindet"

SW-NÖ 04

2008-04-05T13:59:00.000+02:00

Animation
Barbara Musil & Karo Szmit 2004

part 1

part 2

"As tourists with artistic ambitions we explore the image world of the town of Reinsberg, wandering through the paintings of the region that we find in the houses we visit during our stay there. Instead of creating conventional souvenir pictures by freezing moments, we thaw frozen snapshots by re-introducing the space-time axis."

Freie Radikale

2008-04-05T13:50:00.000+02:00

Animation, Installation
Barbara Musil & Karo Szmit 2002

"Alltägliche Abläufe in unserer Welt, die mit freiem Auge nicht sichtbar sind, spielen sich gleichzeitig mit unserem makroskopischen Leben zwischen winzigen Protagonisten in mikroskopischen Surroundings ab."

endless point of...

2008-04-05T13:40:00.000+02:00

Animation
sound: quarks: Königin (turner mix)
Karo Szmit 2002

part of the video/text installation "gnomentropie" together with "stay"

stay

2008-04-05T13:31:00.000+02:00

Animation
sound: Bonnie Bianco
Karo Szmit 2002

part of the video/text installation "gnomentropie" together with "endless point of..."

2008-03-14T15:30:00.003+01:00

drawings for my diploma at the art university
(dec 2007 posts)

2007-12-20T23:51:00.001+01:00

2007-12-18T18:16:00.001+01:00

2007-12-18T14:15:00.001+01:00

2007-12-18T14:14:00.001+01:00

2007-12-18T14:13:00.001+01:00

2007-12-18T14:12:00.000+01:00

2007-12-18T14:11:00.000+01:00

2007-12-18T14:10:00.001+01:00

2007-12-16T15:43:00.000+01:00

2007-12-14T11:58:00.001+01:00

2007-12-13T18:44:00.001+01:00

2007-12-13T14:23:00.001+01:00

2007-12-12T22:26:00.000+01:00

2007-12-12T14:29:00.001+01:00

2007-12-12T13:55:00.001+01:00

2007-12-10T14:15:00.001+01:00

2007-12-10T12:08:00.000+01:00

2007-12-09T15:54:00.001+01:00

2007-12-09T12:05:00.000+01:00

2007-12-08T14:20:00.001+01:00

2007-12-08T11:27:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T21:29:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T19:49:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T15:39:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T13:23:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T10:49:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T10:48:00.001+01:00

2007-12-07T10:46:00.001+01:00

2007-12-06T12:28:00.001+01:00