FACTOID #1, Antwerp (B), November 2006
FACTOID #2, Düsseldorf (D), February 2007
FACTOID #3, Brussels (B), September 2007
FACTOID #4, Ljubljana (SL), November 2007
FACTOID #5, Chester (UK), July 2009
Factoid is a series of site-specific installations in the guise of drawings (or drawings in the guise of installations). Created by Carina Gosselé and Michael Laird, this series of drawing-constructions – made from lines of tape (Tesa 4651) – form both axonometric and illusionistic architectural spaces which collide, interact, intersect, contradict and ignore each other, their simultaneous appearance deforming sequential movement through space. By splicing together different perspectival forms, Factoid utilizes a system of intersection and dispersal, much as a neural network operates. In this case, however, the information distributed along the network takes the form of a borderline-incomprehensible illusion of spatial relationships.
Factoid #1 was created for the Extra (sic) Factor exhibition in Antwerp in November 2006. Approximately 4.5 meters at its highest point, the work covered four walls and a section of floor with lines of tape, while a fifth wall combined taped lines with a painting of two enormous orange S-VHS cables. No sooner was this work completed – that is to say, brought to the largest state time and space allowed for such an open-ended work – then Carina began to dance around and drill holes into it, in an opening (literally) night performance which punctured the work’s pristine quality with a series of regular and irregular holes. Shafts of black light streamed through holes in one of the walls from a fluorescent bulb hidden behind it. A cheerful, barely audible sound installation accompanied this performance, which continued throughout much of the night.
Factoid #2 was exhibited in the Gloria Halle in Düsseldorf. This second version was created on two clear sheets of plastic measuring 3 x 5 meters each, one of which was covered with an architectural-perspectival tape-constructed drawing similar to Factoid #1, while the other had a giant spider web pattern on it, also “drawn” with tape. These two sheets of plastic were placed over an interior wall, the web hanging loosely over the architectural drawing, creating a flexible area between them within which we could perform. Some of the architectural lines continued onto the floor, as if they had spilled off of the plastic. The myriad web of associations resulting from this juxtaposition were entirely intentional. Wearing white, hooded, one-piece, disposable work suits, Carina was labeled as “spider” and Michael as “fly.” Michael wore his suit backwards so that the hood, adorned with sun glasses, covered his face as he talk-sang “Human Fly” by the Cramps, as Carina, wearing a large fur hat (the same one she wore while drilling into Factoid #1), covered him with some of the same black tape the drawings were made of. The lyrics became increasingly disjointed and repetitive as the spider covered her victim with tape, until she finally led him through the audience and out of the halle.
Factoid #2 was sponsored by Tesa Corporation
Factoid #3, exhibited in La Vitrine, a project curated by Isabelle Azaïs at her shop in Brussels, consisted of two parts, each measuring two meters high and 1.20 meters wide. This time the taped, architecturally discordant lines were on glass, namely the front window of the shop’s vitrine. Behind it was a larger-than-life still from a video of Carina’s performance for Factoid #1. With lines both behind her image in the photo and in front of her on the window, Carina appeared to be immersed in disparate, floating, forced-perspective architectural drawings.
Factoid #4, was created for Potemkin Village, part of Festival Break 2.4 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In keeping with the aims of this event (based around the theme of fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787), Factoid #4 served to camouflage/subvert the façade of a single-family, pre-war house, undermining its implied inherent structure. Architectural fragments from the Antwerp and Düsseldorf versions of Factoid were included in the composition, in keeping with the project’s tendency to incorporate parts of its history within itself.
Factoid #5, We had noticed early on that the manner in which Factoid manipulates architecture, allowing it to spread like a force of nature, has something in common with Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau. Thus, it was appropriate that the most recent installation in this series was created for a conference and exhibition at the University of Chester entitled Kurt Schwitters in England – Authenticity, Reproduction, Simulation. Michael read a paper at the conference detailing Factoid’s connections to the work of Schwitters, as well as several other artists, including El Lissitzky, Theo Van Doesburg, Gordon Matta-Clark, Brion Gysin and William Burroughs. For the exhibition, the two-meter-high poster of Carina used in Brussels was placed in a hallway leading to a theatre, with architectural forms added to the adjoining walls and doors created with taped lines extending from those on the poster.
Text by Michael Laird
FACTOID #2, Düsseldorf (D), February 2007
FACTOID #3, Brussels (B), September 2007
FACTOID #4, Ljubljana (SL), November 2007
FACTOID #5, Chester (UK), July 2009
Factoid is a series of site-specific installations in the guise of drawings (or drawings in the guise of installations). Created by Carina Gosselé and Michael Laird, this series of drawing-constructions – made from lines of tape (Tesa 4651) – form both axonometric and illusionistic architectural spaces which collide, interact, intersect, contradict and ignore each other, their simultaneous appearance deforming sequential movement through space. By splicing together different perspectival forms, Factoid utilizes a system of intersection and dispersal, much as a neural network operates. In this case, however, the information distributed along the network takes the form of a borderline-incomprehensible illusion of spatial relationships.
Factoid #1 was created for the Extra (sic) Factor exhibition in Antwerp in November 2006. Approximately 4.5 meters at its highest point, the work covered four walls and a section of floor with lines of tape, while a fifth wall combined taped lines with a painting of two enormous orange S-VHS cables. No sooner was this work completed – that is to say, brought to the largest state time and space allowed for such an open-ended work – then Carina began to dance around and drill holes into it, in an opening (literally) night performance which punctured the work’s pristine quality with a series of regular and irregular holes. Shafts of black light streamed through holes in one of the walls from a fluorescent bulb hidden behind it. A cheerful, barely audible sound installation accompanied this performance, which continued throughout much of the night.
Factoid #2 was exhibited in the Gloria Halle in Düsseldorf. This second version was created on two clear sheets of plastic measuring 3 x 5 meters each, one of which was covered with an architectural-perspectival tape-constructed drawing similar to Factoid #1, while the other had a giant spider web pattern on it, also “drawn” with tape. These two sheets of plastic were placed over an interior wall, the web hanging loosely over the architectural drawing, creating a flexible area between them within which we could perform. Some of the architectural lines continued onto the floor, as if they had spilled off of the plastic. The myriad web of associations resulting from this juxtaposition were entirely intentional. Wearing white, hooded, one-piece, disposable work suits, Carina was labeled as “spider” and Michael as “fly.” Michael wore his suit backwards so that the hood, adorned with sun glasses, covered his face as he talk-sang “Human Fly” by the Cramps, as Carina, wearing a large fur hat (the same one she wore while drilling into Factoid #1), covered him with some of the same black tape the drawings were made of. The lyrics became increasingly disjointed and repetitive as the spider covered her victim with tape, until she finally led him through the audience and out of the halle.
Factoid #2 was sponsored by Tesa Corporation
Factoid #3, exhibited in La Vitrine, a project curated by Isabelle Azaïs at her shop in Brussels, consisted of two parts, each measuring two meters high and 1.20 meters wide. This time the taped, architecturally discordant lines were on glass, namely the front window of the shop’s vitrine. Behind it was a larger-than-life still from a video of Carina’s performance for Factoid #1. With lines both behind her image in the photo and in front of her on the window, Carina appeared to be immersed in disparate, floating, forced-perspective architectural drawings.
Factoid #4, was created for Potemkin Village, part of Festival Break 2.4 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In keeping with the aims of this event (based around the theme of fake settlements erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigori Aleksandrovich Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787), Factoid #4 served to camouflage/subvert the façade of a single-family, pre-war house, undermining its implied inherent structure. Architectural fragments from the Antwerp and Düsseldorf versions of Factoid were included in the composition, in keeping with the project’s tendency to incorporate parts of its history within itself.
Factoid #5, We had noticed early on that the manner in which Factoid manipulates architecture, allowing it to spread like a force of nature, has something in common with Kurt Schwitters’ Merzbau. Thus, it was appropriate that the most recent installation in this series was created for a conference and exhibition at the University of Chester entitled Kurt Schwitters in England – Authenticity, Reproduction, Simulation. Michael read a paper at the conference detailing Factoid’s connections to the work of Schwitters, as well as several other artists, including El Lissitzky, Theo Van Doesburg, Gordon Matta-Clark, Brion Gysin and William Burroughs. For the exhibition, the two-meter-high poster of Carina used in Brussels was placed in a hallway leading to a theatre, with architectural forms added to the adjoining walls and doors created with taped lines extending from those on the poster.
Text by Michael Laird