About
Yves Netzhammer reflects on fundamental, even subconscious, aspects of the human condition.
In this newly commissioned piece, Netzhammer pares human figures back to their most basic forms in a narrative whose non-linear storyline suggests a flashback following an accident. A three-dimensional animation focuses on characters who are struggling to remember situations that are lost or strangely misshapen by the collective consciousness.
Objects are out of place and mutating – in a moment of clarity, they adopt a symbolic meaning that quickly morphs to a new meaning, rarely fixed. Using highly simplified forms, his animations create a wordless, dream-like universe where the viewer is challenged to interpret and associate the situations presented. Underpinning this work is a desire to explore the philosophical and psychological relationship between humans and objects through a phenomenological approach.
In FACT’s Gallery 2, his animation is set in a site-specific sculptural installation. Objects drawn from the animation are realised in three dimensions, in a similarly concise yet incongruous aesthetic. Splitting the gallery into two layers – ‘above’ and ‘below’ – the audience’s movement is restricted by a labyrinth of ‘trenches’, where symbolic meaning is revealed from various perspectives. The result is an eerie effect whereby objects are not quite what they seem; an immersive space where the laws of existence are not obvious. A soundscape by collaborator and composer Bernd Schurer draws the viewer further into this universe.
Heather Corcoran and Mike Stubbs
Source: Liverpool Biennial International Festival of Contemporary Art, 2010 Guide
Supported by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Swiss arts council prohelvetia, Swiss Cultural Fund in Britain and Stanley Thomas Johnson Foundation.
