The young Finnish artistic duo Tjader-Knight uses the CD-ROM as a multimedia escape from all traditional methods of presenting visual arts. Their exhibition Mechanisims of Exposure ~ Gestures of Pleasure aims to take artistic expression a step farther, even if it is still “sold” as a product via traditional art galleries. Espace Blanche sets out to break new ground, hoping to introduce a varied public to new contemporary trends.

Le jeune duo artistique finlandais Tjader-Knight utilise le CD-Rom comme support de ses œuvres plastiques multi-média. Si son exposition Mechanisms of Exposure/Gestures of Pleasure a l’ambition de faire avancer l’expression artistique en général, les deux artistes doivent toutefois passer par le circuit classique des galeries pour vendre leurs produits. L’Espace Blanche a donc l’avantage de jouer les initiateurs de tendances en proposant à son public de découvrir une création à la pointe de l’art contemporain.

Het jonge Finse kunstenaarsduo Tjader-Knight gebruikt de cd-rom als multimediaal middel om af te stappen van elke traditionele vorm van presentatie van plastische kunsten. Hun tentoonstelling Mechanisms of Exposure~Gestures of Pleasure wil een stap verder gaan in de kunstexpressie, ook al ‘verkoopt’ dit product zich nog via het klassieke circuit van kunstgalerieen. Espace Blanche wil hierin toch de rol van voortouwtrekker spelen en mikt op een verscheiden kunslminnend publiek om de huidige trends duidelijk te maken.

(JMB) Le Soir 15/3/02

Mechanisms of Exposure ~ Gestures of Pleasure: ainsi s’intitule l’exposition de Tjader-Knight inc., que vous pourrez voir jusqu’au 24 mars à la galerie Espace Blanche, 3 rue du Marché au Charbon, à deux pas de la Grand Place (14-18 heures, tous les jours).

Tjader-Knight inc. est le nom de deux artistes qui travaillent en duo et exposent pour les premièr fois à Bruxelles, après avoir montré leur travail dans de nombreuses galeries européenes. Maria Tjader, Finlandaise, crée les images à l’écran et les anime. David Knight, ingénieur du son, Britannique, crée la musique.

<< Music can make people feel sad and miserable, like the metro music >> dit David.

<> répond Maria <> Le plaisir. Ils ont peut-être choisi l’Espace Blanche à cause du calme qu’inspire sa couleur. On entre dans un espace vide, on descend les escaliers et on trouve, devant un écran de projection, deux coussins clairs, souples et envoûtants. David nous invite à nous asseoir et à nous relaxer. Puis le voyage commence.

Des images changeantes qui ne font qu’un avec la musique. <>. Pari réussi? Une des phrases qu’un visiteur a laissée dans le livre d’or à la sortie de l’exposition dit: << I was so tired, so down.....after your exhibition I feel so serein, so peaceful. Thanks and Congratulations >>. Nous regrettons un peu de sortir de ce havre de paix. Certainement, nous irons regarder leur site internet. Un forum avec vos reaction vous y attend.

Beatrice Tofoni – Commission en Direct 15/03/02

As some of you may have noticed, we haven’t been updating the site for some time.
Thought that we would add some more material and re-arrange a little.

Things updated:

• Filmography
• Web-based
• CG images
• Archive

Still much more to come….

Fugacity, Nothing U can DO !!, and Stratify

TJADER-KNIGHT inc.s’ three digital hybrids, “Fugacity”, “Nothing U can DO !!”, and “Stratify”, work to eliminate the contemporary viewpoints in the history of conflict by removing any sense of a one-dimensional narrative. TJADER-KNIGHT inc. breaks down the classical narrative and instead, presents an antiauthoritarian one with a stream of sounds, images and text devoid of any central point of view. General points of view do exist however within the jumbled sources of information. As this name implies, “Fugacity” is an attempt at portraying history in its transitory state by presenting the forces that show history in a volatile manner. “Nothing U can DO !!” comments on history’s deficiency in capturing 20th century sources of power through the over simplification of historical atrocities. The last work, “Stratify”, mirrors the problems in trying to identify and escape an individual’s placement in the organization of power within historical documentation. All three pieces argue that the investigation of power in 20th century conflict is less important when compared to what one already knows about power and why one knows only those power sources. By intentionally arranging the mediums of history – sounds, images, and text – on the Internet, TJADER-KNIGHT inc. emphasizes a “perpetual ellipsis” of history and the Internet.

In “Fugacity”, the artist presents the audience with multiple viewing positions through the juxtapositions of images, sound, and text. Documentary footage of the malfunctioning nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons testing on the Pacific by the Americans is presented. The first superimposed image is the structure of Tshernobyl.

Below these images, text from Hakim Bey’s The Ontological Status of Conspiracy Theory begins to scroll across a selected verse from the Bhagavad Gita. Selected text from Hakim Bey’s work describes the displacement of power through the multiple levels of history. The citation from the Bhagavad Gita relates to a quotation made by Robert Oppenheimer during his witnessing of the first atomic explosion. While both Oppenheimer and Bey’s quotations are important in what they discuss, the intentional omission of the complete text seems just as important. The deliberate omission of the piece leads the audience to recognize TJADER-KNIGHT inc.s’ intentional manipulation. This manipulation can be read in many ways. On one level, it parallels a potential conspiracy theory of historical manipulation noted in Bey’s work and the “conspiracies of the former Soviet Union regarding their neighbouring states” through the images of Tshernobyl (TJADER-KNIGHT inc.). On another level, it parallels the power to destroy information through the creation of new associations within the web page. The viewer is led to investigate how the sources relate to each other. They are also led to investigate how these sources, working as a whole, relate to the viewer. They are also poised to explore how this piece relates to the artist and how the sources take on new forms of information through the conscious selections of the artist. “Fugacity” urges the viewer into several paths at once – allowing many transitory revelations to appear to the viewer.

Because of the barrage of information displayed to the viewer, the viewer is only able to pick up specific pieces of information. The perception of the whole becomes a series of replays, in which the viewer replays the artwork repeatedly to find different points of viewing positions. In “Nothing U can DO !!”, the artist demonstrates how this positioning of the viewer parallels the inadequacies of historical documentation. While viewers have the luxury of rereading or replaying documents, viewers do not have this luxury in real time and space. There are visual references to many atrocities including the Holocaust, early 20th century Japanese invasions of Asia, South American dictators’ drug wars, and Tibet. In relation to these war crimes and atrocities, it is impossible to understand the true experiences and suffering of the people under brutal regimes unless one was actually there. This is symbolized through the sliding photos of prisoners and tortured captives. In “Nothing U can DO !!”, the sliding images represent a microcosm in onto themselves. The massive destruction in these events are shrunk down and minimized into still photographs. The viewer’s knowledge is not of the actually experience, but the experience of the photograph. This temporal displacement that the viewer experiences shows the viewer one of history’s main flaw; although documentation can capture sounds, images, and text, the emotions are left to the subjectivity of the viewer.

“Stratify” elaborates on the inadequacies of history by discussing how the meanings of words can change from person to person. TJADER-KNIGHT inc. displays sections “G” and “D” of Gilles Deleuze’s Desire and Pleasure next to an aurora of slowly morphing light. The text from section “G” is stationary while section “D” scrolls vertically up the screen. “Stratify” brings to light the discrepancies of words through a discussion of word meanings between Deleuze and Foucault. In Desire and Pleasure, Deleuze discusses how the words ‘desire’ and ‘pleasure’ move him into different positions of thought than those of Foucault.

Evidently it is again something other than a question of words. Since as for myself I can hardly bear the word “pleasure”. But why? For me, desire does not comprise any lack; neither is it a natural given; it is but one with an assemblage of heterogenous elements which function; it is process, in contrast with structure or genesis; it is affect, as opposed to feeling; it is “haecceity” (individuality of a day, a season, a life), as opposed to subjectivity; it is event, as opposed to thing or person. (Deleuze, Desire & Pleasure)

The haecceity, or quality of being present as an event in time and space, move the viewer to see history not as a representation of past events, but as a completely separate event. History and words become separated events through the individual reading of words. “Stratify” becomes not a representation of history, but a new event, holding only within itself a ‘thisness’ which is experienced when an individual views the page.

In addition to the haecceity of words, Deleuze goes on to discuss the “’body without organs’. This body without organs is defined by zones of intensity, thresholds, gradients, [and] flux” (Deleuze, Desire & Pleasure). Unlike the body with organs, which can be labelled and defined, the body without organs is “opposed to all the strata of organization” (Deleuze, Desire & Pleasure). ”Stratify” presents history as a body without organs. “In a system of ‘bio-power’ the stratas of information can well be organized into equal entities, and also hypothetically the power is given to the individuals through very old feudal beliefs. Under such veiled a dictation the knowledge and means for action of an individual become very limited” (TJADER-KNIGHT inc.). Words and images cycle through definitions within definitions under their own strata, which can only exist through referencing themselves back to words. “Stratify” works not to define power in History, but to present the viewer’s encasement within the meanings and definitions of words that are used to describe these events. In addition, because the viewer witnesses these documents as a haecceity of events, they are only capable to experiencing History in a fragmented and separated manner.

In all three works, the artist presents information through three sources – sound, video, and text. These sources form history’s primary trinity of documentation. Unlike history, which tries to conceal its disabilities, TJADER-KNIGHT inc. magnifies the fragmented and partiality of history’s inability to capture everything. Pictures become continually changing fragments. The artist removes passages from writers and philosophers and displays them not in their entirety. All of this unfolds while a sound of rhythmic vibrations endlessly loops in the background. The forces that select what to include in historical documentation is symbolized in TJADER-KNIGHT inc.s’ selection of fragmented images and text. While history may purport itself to be a body of knowledge external and unmovable to that of human change, TJADER-KNIGHT inc. elaborates how history, as well as the individual, progresses as humanity dues through time and space.

The Internet serves as a perfect domain for these pieces. While removing the classical narrative from the works, viewers are given the power to create their own paths through their subjective experience with the works. Similar to hypertext, the viewer can change directions at any given time. Although the artist chooses what to present to the viewer, the viewer is left to use his or her own devices of interpretation. While hypertext allows one to change directions, it presents one with a fragmented and partial view of information. Like many who study history, a naivety is manifested in the assumption that history represents the whole truth. Similar to history, the Internet is sometimes presented as an immense library of information and many perceive Internet sources as authorities on information. Both views are misleading and are critiqued by TJADER-KNIGHT inc.s’ highly fragmented yet formally complete artwork. While the work is fragmented to parallel fragmented information, the work is intentionally arranged as to invite the viewer to consider his or her own authoritative powers of interpretation. The use of the Internet motivates one to consider “several directions, several meanings, causes and grounds” in the discussion of authorities on historical powers.

The freedom to represent historical records on the Internet moves one to consider the possibility of a new power structure. By using the Internet, TJADER-KNIGHT inc., along with the viewer, share in the creative process of interpretation. While once reserved for the extremely privileged, the webpage gives relatively ordinary people the power to communicate through representing information. Despite Internet access still being reserved for wealthier nations, it nonetheless expands and spreads out the powers that could potentially recreate history. This expansion leads to diversification of knowledge in a non-hierarchical order and promotes a rhetoric of conflict through the various sources of information on the Internet. “Fugacity”, “Nothing U can DO !!”, and “Stratify” map out various forms of historical discourse while representing them in a multi-sequential form. The subjective view one takes within this multi-sequential view allows for a greater understanding of the framing of power in historical documentation of various mediums.

Written by: Michael Jacoby (c) 2003
Original critique: http://www.ontherundesign.com/Artists/Tjader_Knight.html

For more info see Mechanisms of Exposure ~ Gestures of Pleasure

For more info see Hysteria

For more info see Dehiscense

For more info see Nothing U can DO!!

For more info see CAUSTICALLY HAPPY

Fingers to myself
Premiere 20.8.2004 at Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma,
Helsinki, Finland

TJADER-KNIGHT inc. performs an operation to put into question the future comportment of policies for citizens fingerprints in order to be able to keep their fingers to themselves. Seated on each end of a long oblong table in a minimal setting, full of light, the operation is mechanically carried out.
I am not a criminal.

I keep my fingers to myself.
The European Commission has adopted a proposal for a Council Regulation that will set legally binding minimum standards for harmonised security features, including biometric identifiers, in all EU passports. Proposal for a COUNCIL REGULATION on standards for security features and biometrics in EU citizens’ passports Brussels, 18.2.2004 COM(2004) 116 final states:
“Following the tragic events of 11 September 2001, there was a call for immediate reaction in enhancing security features in documents. In this framework, it is worth to mention that the United States have set the 26 October 2004* as the final date for a visa waiver country ‘as a condition for designation or continuation of that designation that it has a programme to issue to its nationals machine-readable passports that are tamper-resistant and incorporate biometric identifiers that comply with applicable biometric identifiers standards established by the International Civil Aviation Organization’.”

*This date has been deferred on June 14, 2004 by the 108th Congress 2d Session as follows: “Not later than October 26, 2005, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State, shall install at all ports of entry into the United States equipment and software to allow biometric comparison and authentication of passports issued pursuant to subsection.”

The Commission additionally wants to set up a centralised, biometrics-based ‘EU passport register’, which would contain the fingerprint(s) of passport applicants together with the relevant passport number. This would create a global database of over a billion people by 2015.
ARE WE ALL BECOMING SUSPECTS?

© TJADER-KNIGHT inc. MM-MMIV

produced by Boring Films
financially supported by
AVEK, FRAME

Sponsored by
Marimekko, ARTEK

Printwork courtesy by
Painotalo Suomenmaa, Oulu