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Article in “Frieze”,
contemporary Art and Culture Martin Pesch
(translated by Michael Robinson) London,
November-December 1997 ….Ritual 1-2 (1997)
by Dutch artist Peter Bogers takes a more spectacular approach. In contrast
with many works in the show, which approach the theme oft he body with calm
reticence, a ticking wall-clock establishes the tempo in Bogers' space. On
one wall you see real-time pictures from various other exhibition areas, or
of yourself, caught up in Bogers' video works. On the floor are 12 TV
monitors set in a circle. The scenes playing are edited in such a way that
each screen shows a violent scene from a feature film and then freezes. This
produces an endless sequence of punches and bullet wounds. You stand in the
middle and follow them round, or you sit down in front of a smaller video
screen and watch loops of action scenes dissolving into each other.
Headphones play a soundtrack like a DJ’s set, with shots and blows as the
beat. You are aware that Bogers’ sources help shape our image of the body,
but it is the only work in the exhibition to make it clear, through the
vehemence of it’s manipulation, that this is wrong. After that, you can rest on E.R.Sontag’s
rubber seat, entitled OMO (1996-97), enjoying the vibrations running through
your body, until Bogers’ images start to slowly drain out of your
brain-unfortunately they will never disappear completely…….. ________________ Text
from the catalogue: “Short Cuts: Anschlüße
an den Körper” Written
by Iris Dressler, Dortmund 1997 Ritual 1&2 Ritual 1-2 & 3 is a concentrate of
pictures and sounds from fictitious scenes of violence of the kind we get
served up daily on/by television. Bogers has isolated the culmination of
physical abuse and execution, always the same and unwinding in a matter of
seconds, from hundreds of action
films and edited them to 13 different
video streams. _______________________
<< Back fragment of The mutated
body Written by Jorinde
Seijdel in a Montevideo/TBA publication,1998 ...Ritual 1 & 2, which are presented
in direct connection with each other, once again confront us with the body,
but in a different form from previous works. Ritual 1 consists of an
old-fashioned, wooden wall clock and twelve monitors, placed in a circle on
the floor, with their screens facing inwards. They show video and audio
samples of physical violence from TV films, and are edited according to the
strict rhythm of the ticking clock -this work also bears witness to the
special way in which Bogers deals with sound. Each second, a flash of violent
action can be seen, which, the next second, springs over to the next monitor.
Ritual2 is a large video projection with live images originating from three
black-and-white cameras installed in various areas of the exhibition
building. One of the cameras records the image of the exhibition gallery
itself, and therefore also shows the installations and observers. Each
second, the images vibrate on the tick of the clock. A table and two chairs
are placed in front of the projection screen. On the table, there is a small
colour monitor, with two connected headphones. Visitors can sit down and view
a constant, rhythmical repetition of violent actions. The observer standing in the middle of
the circle of monitors, witness to a chain of violent, vibrating moments,
becomes involved in the performance via the camera, which records and
directly transmits his presence. He is no longer an outsider, but what is he
then? Intruder, voyeur, or accomplice? But to what? What has landed up in?
The violence shows itself formalised and ritualised by the repetitions and
lack of context, thus emphasising the passive, inactive, role of the
observer. But at the same time, the rhythm of the clock has also annexed his
image on the screen: He becomes infected by the same thing that has pervaded
the other images, incorporated into the same order. He under-goes a
metamorphosis, in spite of himself. The way in which
the various elements of Ritual 1 & 2 overflow into each other, and link
the rooms together, makes it difficult to escape from this 'creepy',
introverted, atmosphere. As with Apart and Heaven, Ritual 1 &
2 are governed by different laws of space, time and causality. An alternative
reality manifests itself, where the familiar certainties and stories do not
apply. Its logic and coherence is not ours, but rather, comes from within,
from the objects and images themselves. We become aware that our traditional
perception of reality, and of ourselves, is not absolute, but relative. The
unity and coherence, the seamlessness between the things and events that we
think we see, even in ourselves, perhaps do not exist at all, but serve to
maintain our superior place and position. Considered from this traditional
position, the effect of Bogers' images is uncomfortable and disconcerting;
they condemn us to a condition of solitude. But Bogers does not actually
stage an intimidating, morally reprehensible future, nor do his mutated
bodies express concern. Rather, by making a different order visible, he
enforces a radical turnabout, which undermines our familiar position and challenges
us to assume a different identity, to cast a different glance at the world
and to reinvent it… ____________________________
<< Back English Text from the
catalogue of the exhibition ‘Force’, Casino Luxembourgh, 09-2002. Written by Doreet
Levitte.
Peter Bogers’ video installation, Ritual 1,
consists of twelve monitors placed in a circle. In precise sequences of one
second each the monitors relay, clockwise, scenes of violence taken from
films and TV action dramas. The spectator stands in the middle of the circle,
in a position similar to the Panopticon’s guard and must submit to the
circular movement in order to follow the images’ sequences. This movement
disturbs his absolute position of power as an all-seeing entity and forces
him to interact with the images, thus submitting himself to their hypnotic
attraction. Bogers orchestrates violence like an
opera. He chooses the climatic moments of the aggressive action as seen on
the screen, separates it from the narrative it originally belongs to and
concentrates on the cathartic moment when aggression reaches its home target.
The broken narrative of each video, the fragments that had a coherence while
belonging to the cinematic experience, are assembled into a new text, which
changes the essential characteristics that were built in the original story.
Thus, whether the action was justified or not, moral or revengeful, aesthetic
or ugly is of no importance. This spectacle of pistols and blows, blood and
wounds zooms towards one target — it shows aggression to be the weakest link
in the chain of power and reveals force as a last resource, where real power
is subjected to a corrupted version of its potential. Force in Bogers’ video
reveals itself to be both the most spectacular yet the least genuine
manifestation of power. Because violence is rendered in precise
sequences, as opposed to its chaotic and random features, and since this
timing creates order and aesthetics negating the essence of the subject
matter, it becomes clear that Bogers has elevated violence to a ritual and
has introduced the notion of a mythical time into the set of actions he
presents. The very arrangement of a circular time and space corresponds with
the idea of time outside the natural order, as characteristic of the duration
of a holy sermon. By isolating the actions they become meaningless and
enigmatic, as if another meaning was imposed on them for which we lack
understanding. In doing so Bogers leads us back to the futility embedded in
the aggressive act. While within the context of a story we could have excused
it, considering motives and human reaction, violence, when isolated from any
context, is always a weak and stupid act. Ritualised violence is a phenomenon we
are familiar with. Ritualisation in matters of aggressions has the purpose of
giving meaning and decorum to atrocities of all kinds. Moreover, the very
aesthetics of virility this ritualisation takes on covers the weakness
suggested by acts of aggression. Bogers manipulates the ritualistic element
to serve his ends and exposes both power and its celebrations to be the icons
of a value they are supposed to negate. The sound and light effects that go with
each act in the video are like a physical attack on the onlooker. A double
assault is created: one inherent to the image itself, the other produced
through its presentation, i.e. while the images tell the story of the attack,
they repeat it symbolically by the nature of their transformation.
DLH |