Caspar Stracke

Caspar Stracke

born in Darmstadt / Germany in 1967
lives and works in New York, Berlin and Mexico City

His work has its roots in experimental film and performance. In his present videos and installations he creates artificial temporal and spatial connections between sites and events.

Caspar Stracke: Doppel, 2004, video installation / single channel video - still
Caspar Stracke: Doppel, 2004, video installation / single channel video - still
Caspar Stracke: urban particle supercollider, 2007, three channel video installation
Caspar Stracke: urban particle supercollider, 2007, three channel video installation
Caspar Stracke: Z2 [zuse strip] in FUTURE CINEMA at ZKM, Germany 2002/2003
Caspar Stracke: 2001, three channel video installation - Goethe Institute, Budapest
Caspar Stracke: No Damage, 2002, video - still

Press images to download:

Caspar Stracke: Doppel / still from the video

Caspar Stracke: Doppel   screen JPG 72 dpi / 111 KB
  print JPG 150dpi / 111 KB

To use only with the aggreement of Videospace Budapest in connection with the art work of Caspar Stracke mentioning the following credits:
Doppel © Caspar Stracke, Videospace Budapest 2008









Upcoming exhibitions
CV
Press material to download


The artist and his work

Caspar Stracke is a German new media artist who works in film, video and installation. He has exhibited internationally, primarily in the US, Europe and Japan, and has received a number of awards , fellowships and residencies, including one at Eyebeam Center for New Media in New York City. Stracke has also worked extensively as an image journalist and video editor in the commercial realm, and has acted as a curator in various new media projects. His work revolves around a variety of subjects, most recently architecture, urbanism and its socological implications. (...)

While all of his works but one are attributed to him alone as author, he has used a variety of strategies that expand the notion of artistic creation, particularly the idea of the artist as sole progenitor of the artwork. "No Damage" (2002) was assembled from clips of over eighty films that featured the architecture of New York City. "Urban Particle Supercollider" he originally began as a Flickr group, where people in Teheran, New York City, and Seoul posted images of urban street objects. In addition, comments posted with the photographs were transformed into numeric values that determined the position and trajectory of the objects in the finished work, over which he exerted no control. "Kubrick Space" (2001) was edited entirely by machine; this work he even attributed to the machine as the creator: The "SK 090 CED player" (CED Trilogy, 2001)

A number of works deal with the urban environment. As "No Damage" is dedicated to the New York architecture in cinema, "Locked Groove" (1997) collages closeups of the movements of urban workers. Some of the works establish connections between disparate urban environments, suggesting that the urban environment has transnational properties.

"Doppel" (2004), fuses images of monumental archietcture and its exact replica, between Shanghai and Ivory Coast. "Points of Presence" (2005) cuts and pastes objects of one city into another. Fusion and hybridity, concepts that computers address with ease, appear in his work again and again. Both "Doppel" and "Points of Presence" create new environments out of images of different cities. Similarly, in "Urban Particle Supercollider", Stracke combined images where the street objects showed evidence of commonality. For example, he fused garbage bins from two different cities into a new, singular form. (...)

Stracke’s work exhibits evidence of a remarkable sympathy that extends beyond humanity ("Locked Groove") to the built environment and the specific objects within it. In much of his work, juxtaposition, collaging, and fusion give life to new forms from old. In "Bump & Bump" (1986), the camera assumes the perspective of a basketball as it careens around the court during a practice session. And in "No Damage", created after 9/11, viewers are asked to see buildings as evolving life forms, with which we might have an ongoing, and intimate relationship. New media are often referred to as "cool" media, in contrast to the "warm" media associated with craft, materials, and the human hand. In addition, machines in general, and computers in particular, often take on a menacing aspect in popular media, as in the film "2001" (whose director, Stanley Kubrick, is referenced in Stracke's work). But in Stracke's hands, or better, mind, the computer is the tool that allows both Stracke and his viewers to experience viscerally a sensual, non-hierarchical, erotic animism, and not the totalitarian dystopia that many fear.

Pamela Crimmins
ART CRITICAL January 2007


Upcoming exhibitions


CV

BIOGRAPHY
born in Darmstadt / Germany in 1967
www.videokasbah.net

AWARDS/RESIDENCIES (selection)
SOLO SHOWS (selection)

2008
  • Intrude 366, ZENDAI Museum od Art
    2007
  • .ART AT THE W (presented by Janet Oh Gallery, Seoul)
  • Urbanismo, Espacio Plasma, Buenos Aires, Argentina (with Terrence Gower)

    PARTICIPATIONS (selection)
    2009
  • Processes II, Videospace Budapest Gallery, Budapest
    2008
  • Video as an Instrument II, Supreme Trading, Brooklyn, NY
  • TRY AGAIN FAIL BETTER, Mücsarnok Kunsthalle Budapest (curated by Hajnalka Somogy)
  • NOBE 67, ART Miami Art Basel 2008 (curated by Milagros Bello)
    2007
  • TRANSFERENCE, Eyebeam, New York
  • Kopieren & Verfälschen Kunsthaus FRISE, Hamburg
  • Where Euclid Walked. Seoul Muesum of Art
    2006
  • European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück, Germany
  • Strip Images in Line, Künstlerbund, Berlin. Curator: Rolf Bier
  • BAP Lab, Brooklyn Art Projects, Brooklyn, NY
    2005
  • Strip Images in Line, Kunstverein Hannover. Curator: Rolf Bier
  • Stadt Rand Fluß Lothringer 13, Munich, Germany
  • Silent Observers, Modern Art Museum, Rijka, Croatia
  • Media Archaeology, DiverseWorks, Houston Texas
  • Remapped Realities, EYEBEAM, NY (curator: Benjamin Weill)
  • Video as an Instrument, THE TANK, New York