Diagonal Noise

Tiago Duarte | Joke Van den Heuvel | Vijai Patchineelam | Posture Editions | Adrien Tirtiaux | Floris Vanhoof  

In collaboration with UK/Belgium-based artist Tiago Duarte, Castlefield Gallery is inviting Belgium-based artists Joke Van den Heuvel, Vijai Patchineelam, Adrien Tirtiaux and Floris Vanhoof to exhibit existing, new and site-specific work. Diagonal Noise will also include a reading area displaying publications by Posture Editions (Ghent, Belgium) and the exhibiting artists, alongside publications by artists and organisations based in and around Greater Manchester.

Diverse subjects and disciplines inform the practices of the exhibiting artists. Considering the effect technology has on the formal qualities of contemporary art, Duarte looks for recurrent patterns in the mechanics of production. Though these patterns may manifest inherent malfunctions or misappropriation of media, they form the basis for the continuation of erratic and repetitious exercises.

Like Duarte, Vanhoof investigates technology, particularly formats whose days may be numbered, experimenting with analogue technologies that used to be known as ‘high-tech’ alongside contemporary digital technology. Technology is not an end in itself, but a means for poetically exploring images, ideas and sound with works that often begin as live performances.

Sudden Shifts (2012) by Patchineelam was filmed in Jardim Canadá, Brazil, a small rural town which has seen radical industrialisation in the last decade. Static camera positions, montage and abrupt cuts continually reorganise durational still lifes of industrial objects and abandoned furniture, pressing at the boundary between narrative and non-narrative relations to image and site.

Van den Heuval is also interested in narratives produced by the barely perceptible, acknowledging that the meaning of images cannot be contained by language. Recordings of repetitive actions and monotonous characters in looping scenes blur the observer’s focus, inducing a kind of blindness towards the object – a blindness that makes seeing possible again.

Tirtiaux deals with the specific characteristics of exhibition and public spaces, creating architectural interventions or large-scale sculpture informed by a careful examination of the given context in which he acts and works, drawing on the strategies of 70s conceptual art and the direct pictorial language of comic art.

Diagonal Noise will coincide with the EU referendum and as Thursday 23 June approaches the UK public are being asked to consider their relationship with the European Union in the context of politicised maybes. This could be an interesting coincidence, but this exhibition leans more towards causality than chance. In places the works in Diagonal Noise are intrusive, forcing or slipping their way into one another, presenting states of dis-encounter, contingent proposals below the watermark of comprehension, of what might have been or might yet be.

More on the artists:

Tiago Duarte b. 1979, lives and works between Edinburgh, Manchester and Antwerp. Duarte has a Master of Research in Arts and Design from Sint Lucas University College of Art and Design, Antwerp, Belgium and a Master of Art from the Manchester School of Art, UK. Tiago’s practice is constrained by the derivatives of process such as repetition, differentiation and variation, revolving around the appropriation of technologies and its procedures. He reflects on how these technologies affect the formal qualities of contemporary art. By identifying recurrent patterns in the mechanics of production, even if these patterns manifest an inherent malfunction or misappropriation of the mediums and techniques, he finds the basis for the continuation of erratic exercises. Solo exhibitions include Idem Idem Aspas Aspas, Plataforma Revolver, Lisbon, Portugal (2014); Dilue Noir, Celine Poisat, Paris, (2012); Group exhibitions include, THE GAME OF ROLES, Paris Texas, Antwerp (2015); Love Will Tear Us Apart, Hal, Antwerp (2015); Dive In, Plataforma Revolver, Lisbon, Portugal (2013); Some Recent Examples, Lever Street, Manchester (2013); One Two, Bankley Gallery, Manchester (2013); Cabedal, Plataforma Revolver, Lisbon, Portugal (2012); Part of the Program, FaFa Gallery, Helsinki, Finland (2012); Afternoon Tea, WW Gallery, 54th Venice Biennale, Italy (2011). Art Fairs include SomeRecentExamples & Francis- POPPOSITIONS Brussels (2015); The Manchester Contemporary, Axis Stand (2011). Residencies: AA2A, University of Central Lancashire (2012/13) Nominations include: Short-listed Beers Contemporary Award for Emerging Art, London, UK (2013) The Arts Foundation Fellowship, Printmaking category nomination, Hove, UK, Nominated by Mary Griffiths Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitworth, Manchester (2013). www.tiagoalexandreduarte.com

Joke Van den Heuvel b. 1983, lives and works between Antwerp and Edinburgh. She has a Master of Arts from Sint Lucas University College of Art and Design, Antwerp, Belgium; and currently holds a research position at MICA, Baltimore, U.S.A. Koen Sels writing about Van den Heuvel’s work in 2016 “One might keep on forgetting it but images are things. They cannot answer questions about their circumstances or intention; we have to /or can put these words into their mouths ourselves. What is more, they consist of a matter…magical frames that are unfolded synchronously or in succession play next or behind each other and are clicked away again, back into the deep space of the web…’’. The images Joke Van den Heuvel uses are not intended to be interpreted easily rather they form a process of signification and resonance that act as a proposition to the viewer.

Selected exhibitions include BORG, Antwerp (2014); Wo Meine Sonne Scheint, ART Rotterdam (2014); Time Space Poker Face, curated by Sofie van Loo, BePart, Waregem (2013); Zwiesprache, Künstler sehen Künstler, Workplace, Antwerp (2012); JE VAIS BIEN, MERCI, JE VOUS EN PRIE, Residency at Lokaal 01, Antwerp (2012) www.jokevandenheuvel.com

Vijai Patchineelam b. 1983 in the city of Niterói, Brazil. Patchineelam has a Master of Research in Arts and Design, Sint Lucas University College of Art and Design, Antwerp, Belgium; an MFA from Konstfack University College of Arts Crafts and Design, Stockholm, Sweden and a BA in Industrial Design from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He previously held a research position at the Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, Netherlands and is currently working towards a PhD at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium. Patchineelam’s practice spans film, installation, books and photography; pressing at the boundary between narrative and non-narrative relations between image, object and place. At times responding to site-specific considerations and the political efficacy of the contemporary artist. Recent solo exhibitions include: How to document the image of a protest / How to project the image of protest, Centro Cultural, São Paulo (2015); Resist the past, ignore the future and the incapacity of containing the present, Modern Art Museum of Rio de Janeiro (2015); Group exhibitions include: 18º Festival, Internacional de Arte Contemporânea Sesc, Videobrasil, São Paulo (2013); Boletim, Galeria Millan, São Paulo (2013); Sarai Reader 09: The Exhibition (Episodes 1 and 2), Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi (2012); É preciso confrontar as imagens vagas com os gestos claros, and Oficina, Cultural Oswaldo de Andrade, São Paulo (2011). www.galeriacavalo.com/en/artista/vijai-patchineelam/ www.ignacioliprandi.com/pa001ing.html

Posture Editions based in Ghent, Belgium is coordinated by Nikolaas Demoen and Katrien Daemers and its editorial advisors are Christophe Van Gerrewey, Wim Waelput and Ilse Joliet. It is a paper location, a gallery in book form where one artist at a time can organise a printed exhibition of and about their work. Posture Editions is to be found on the boundary between the artist’s book and the catalogue. Posture Editions aims to offer opportunities to artists to present their work and to shed light on their oeuvre in a more unusual way. Each issue comes with a text by an art critic. It is given a separate place in the publication comparable to the entrance hall of a museum. Recent publications have included art work by Joke Van den Heuvel, Stijn Van Dorpe, Hannelore Van Dijck, Nikolaas Demoen and texts by Sofie Van Loo, Frank Maes, Sarah Késenne and Koen Sels. www.posture-editions.com/

Adrien Tirtiaux b. 1980, lives and works in Antwerp. He studied sculpture and performance under Prof. Monica Bonvicini at the Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Austria, graduating in 2008. Also educated as an architect, Tirtiaux deals with the specific characteristics of exhibition spaces as well as public spaces, and links these sites with narrations. His interventions, which oscillate between the straightness of conceptual strategies of the 70s and the direct pictorial language of comic culture, are the result of careful examination of the given context in which he acts and works. Tirtiaux is also one of the initiators of the HOTEL CHARLEROI collective, which since 2010 has invited artists to take up residence in Charleroi and organize an annual artistic project. Solo exhibitions include A linha clara, Kunsthalle, Sao Paulo (2016); Collective Rules, Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna (2014); Office / Baraque, Lokaal 01, Antwerp  (2013); Die weißen Wände der Welt, Villa Merkel, Esslingen am Neckar (2012); Immer noch und noch nicht, Kunst Halle Sankt-Gallen (2011); Group exhibitions include: Untitled (Two Takes on Crisis), De Appel Arts Centre, Amsterdam (2016); The Image Generator II, Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp (2016); Dark Side of Nature, MNAC Bucharest (2015); Fata Morgana, ikob, Eupen (2014); Young Belgian Art Prize, Bozar, Brussels (2013); 24 spaces, Malmö Konsthal (2013); Expanded Performance, Stroom, Den Haag (2012), Where do we go from here, Secession, Vienna (2010).   www.adrientirtiaux.eu

Floris Vanhoof b. 1982, lives and works in Antwerp. In 2005 he obtained a Master of Audio-Visual Arts, with a specialisation in Experimental Film, from Sint Lukas University, Brussels, Belgium. Vanhoof is interested in the hybrid forms of music, photo and film. He frequently makes performances with live sound and visuals which form the starting points for gallery installations. His first projections were 16mm celluloid experimental films which evolved into pure visual experiences in which he considered human viewing patterns. His work is rooted in structural film and early electronic music. Vanhoof creates his own instruments and installations which often explore the grey area between image (film or slides) and light (projection). As a media-archaeologist, Vanhoof confronts the contemporary digital intruder with flickering 16mm films and slide installations, formats whose days may be numbered. He deliberately choses analogue technology, not for nostalgic reasons, but because he wants to experiment with what used to be known as ‘high-tech’. His work also consists of new technologies such as microprocessors, though he considers technology not to be an end in itself but a means for poetically exploring images, ideas and sound. He recently exhibited at Beurssc50uwburg, Brussels (2015); Kunstencentrum België, Hasselt (2013); Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle (2013). In 2015 he won the ING Public Prize, Young Belgian Art Prize. www.endlesswebsite.blogspot.co.uk

Diagonal Noise has received additional support from Flanders Department for Culture, Youth, Sports and Media.