Impakt at Cross Art in Saint Petersburg

From May 19 to may 25 the Erarta museum in Saint Petersburg will host Cross Art, an international festival on the of synthesis of arts. During a full week all kinds of installations, exhibitions, performances, plays and musical performances will be presented on all floors of the museums galleries wing.

Impakt has been invited by Erarta to contribute to their Cross Art festival with a program. Impakt selected four Dutch artists to participate in the Cross Art: Douwe Dijkstra, Gijs Gieskes, Bas Vermolen and Tijmen Zonnevijlle.

Check out the website of the Cross Art Festival and its index for more information.

Douwe Dijkstra (NL)
The art works of Douwe Dijkstra relate to media and the different ways it encounters our daily life. For Dijkstra the presence and influence of media is one of the most striking things about the world we live in. A recurring theme in his work is armed conflict, distant to most of us but at the same time ubiquitous in news and entertainment. His recent work ‘Démontable’ is a video installation and film on the absurd relationship between daily life and global news. In this work he tries to understand the absurd relation between himself and the distant events. An additional layer to ‘Démontable’ is the integrated ‘making-of’ footage. Scenes that show Dijkstra as a filmmaker, in his studio, trying to construct a fake gun and dressing up like a soldier. Sometimes the ‘making-of’ can be better than the end result. It shows the relationship between the artist and the topics he tries to depict in his films and it sometimes raises uneasy questions like ‘Who am I to dress up like a soldier?!’.

Douwe Dijkstra creates video works, installations, and theater performances. In general his work can be described as playful and often comical. He shows work in museums and galleries. and sometimes also does commissioned works.

Tijmen Zonnevijlle & Bas Vermolen (NL)
For the Cross Art Festival Dutch artists Tijmen Zonnevijlle and Bas Vermolen, (a.k.a. Arts the Beatdoctor) teamed up to create ‘Moebius’ Travel Machine’ an accessible interactive audiovisual installation where the audience itself plays an active role. The installation is equipped with a console with which the audience can control both the beats of Arts the Beatdoctor and the accompanying light show. For a brief moment the audience can experience what it is to be a “live rocking musician”. Tijmenrockt who has years of experience in developing indestructible interactive art installations, combined his skills with the crispy clear producer skills of Arts the Beatdoctor. The result is a combination of the ‘live setup’ of Art the Beatdoctor and the industrial control units of Tijmenrockt: Discover Moebius’ Travel Machine….. and have a good trip!

Bas Vermolen a.k.a. Arts The Beatdoctor is a producer from the Netherlands who crushes electronic synths with organic field recordings. The result is a raw, knob-twisting mixture in the vein of his contemporaries Flying Lotus, Bonobo, and Dorian Concept.
Tijmen Zonnevijlle a.k.a Tijmenrockt stands out from the crowd with a signature style that is a blend of old industrial machinery and cutting edge digital technology. His research into new forms of interactivity is always approached with a rock ‘n roll attitude.

Gijs Gieskes (NL)
When Gijs Gieskes started making electronic equipment years ago he did not know how to do this, he learned it by trying. He found out that his own improvised primitive solutions were more appealing to him than the advanced electronic solutions the market had to offer. His experiments resulted in the ‘5vSequencer’, a drag contact that could be programed with a switch matrix to send out signals to record players, radios, electric motors, etc. Years later he decided to develop the idea further with the technical knowledge that he had gained over the years. This resulted in the works that are in the exhibition of Cross Art. The ‘Motor Modular’ is a modular synth that mostly works with electromechanical operations and the ‘Analog HD2′ is a modified hard disc that can be used as a interface to make noises via mechanical movement. For two other pieces he adapted gameboys. The ‘Gameboy Reboot’ is a gameboy that reboots automatically and the ‘Gameboy Generative’ is a gameboy that tries to make music.

Gijs Gieskes is an industrial designer, mostly specializing in the manufacture and design of audiovisual equipment for live performances. He works with circuit-bending and old-school computer graphics and constructs mechanical devices for musical and visual expression.