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Yours, KOW

Unexpected Rules, 2004

2 Installations

GermanEnglish

The script is based on the “Clinton-Lewinsky Affair”, which arose from the nexus between power, sex, and globalized media and shows how multifaceted levels of interest, along with public images, ultimately render the “true” interpretation of an event impossible. Moser & Schwinger’s version of the affair does not follow a linear storyline that is shaped by causality and rational behavior. Rather, their cinematographic and scenic adaptation of the actors’ contradictory emotions, interests, and strategies creates a complex plot that forces the viewer to accept paradoxes as a part of reality. These different layers are integrated into a popular form of epresentation - a cross between a TV show and puppet theater.

Artists’ statement:
We conceived the lightbox as a place where politics stages its own performance. The fact that all protagonists are constantly on stage makes each character even more lucid. By distorting the facts in a plausible manner, we are attempting to set the characters’ spoken lines within contexts that, in the real world, exclude one another.

The film was first shown at the Biennale de São Paulo 2004 as part of a video installation in which visitors enter the reconstructed film set (a wooden lightbox lined with 1,300 colored bulbs), stand very close to the projection screen, and become first-hand witnesses of the negotiations within the intimate setting of the presidential family.

The script is based on the “Clinton-Lewinsky Affair”, which arose from the nexus between power, sex, and globalized media and shows how multifaceted levels of interest, along with public images, ultimately render the “true” interpretation of an event impossible. Moser & Schwinger’s version of the affair does not follow a linear storyline that is shaped by causality and rational behavior. Rather, their cinematographic and scenic adaptation of the actors’ contradictory emotions, interests, and strategies creates a complex plot that forces the viewer to accept paradoxes as a part of reality. These different layers are integrated into a popular form of epresentation - a cross between a TV show and puppet theater.

Artists’ statement:
We conceived the lightbox as a place where politics stages its own performance. The fact that all protagonists are constantly on stage makes each character even more lucid. By distorting the facts in a plausible manner, we are attempting to set the characters’ spoken lines within contexts that, in the real world, exclude one another.

The film was first shown at the Biennale de São Paulo 2004 as part of a video installation in which visitors enter the reconstructed film set (a wooden lightbox lined with 1,300 colored bulbs), stand very close to the projection screen, and become first-hand witnesses of the negotiations within the intimate setting of the presidential family.

GermanEnglish

Set and video projection. Film 35 mm color transferred to HD video, 16’06 min
Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen
335 x 610 x 420 cm
English speaking

Cast: Roger Tebb (President Roy), Ilya Parenteau (First Lady Heather), Fernanda Farah (Intern Amanda Cook), Peter Cotton (Prosecutor Jerry), Katie Mullins (Secretary (Melinda), Hans Haasis (Diplomat), Leslie Alina Schäfer (Daughter Sunny)
Production manager: Ulrike Mantel
Camera: Anne Misselwitz
Sound: Johanna Herr
Sound assistant: Marc Witte
1. Camera assistant: Christoph Lemmen
2. Camera assistant Marc Lontzek
Script continuity: Barbara Gebler
Gaffer: Günter Berghaus
2. Gaffers: Johannes Neumann, Christof Stemmberger
Set construction: Sebastian Kulisch
Costumes: Sybille Gänsslen-Zeit, Carola Ruckdeschel
Make-up: Marion Greiter
Grip: Bernhard Kühn
Catering: Ingo Biermann
Volunteers: Lea Gryze, Paula Redlefsen
Post-production provided by: Schwarz Film AG, Berlin / Koppfilm GmbH, Berlin

Produced by: Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Berne, and Academy for Film and Television Konrad Wolf, Postdam-Babelsberg
Written, directed and edited by Frédéric Moser and Philippe Schwinger

© 2006-2009 Germany

Set and video projection. Film 35 mm color transferred to HD video, 16’06 min
Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen
335 x 610 x 420 cm
English speaking

Cast: Roger Tebb (President Roy), Ilya Parenteau (First Lady Heather), Fernanda Farah (Intern Amanda Cook), Peter Cotton (Prosecutor Jerry), Katie Mullins (Secretary (Melinda), Hans Haasis (Diplomat), Leslie Alina Schäfer (Daughter Sunny)
Production manager: Ulrike Mantel
Camera: Anne Misselwitz
Sound: Johanna Herr
Sound assistant: Marc Witte
1. Camera assistant: Christoph Lemmen
2. Camera assistant Marc Lontzek
Script continuity: Barbara Gebler
Gaffer: Günter Berghaus
2. Gaffers: Johannes Neumann, Christof Stemmberger
Set construction: Sebastian Kulisch
Costumes: Sybille Gänsslen-Zeit, Carola Ruckdeschel
Make-up: Marion Greiter
Grip: Bernhard Kühn
Catering: Ingo Biermann
Volunteers: Lea Gryze, Paula Redlefsen
Post-production provided by: Schwarz Film AG, Berlin / Koppfilm GmbH, Berlin

Produced by: Swiss Federal Office of Culture, Berne, and Academy for Film and Television Konrad Wolf, Postdam-Babelsberg
Written, directed and edited by Frédéric Moser and Philippe Schwinger

© 2006-2009 Germany

Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Unexpected Rules, 2004, Set (Lightbox; wood, metal, 1.300 coloured light bulbs, light dimmer, projection screen) and video projection (35 mm film, color, transferred to HD video), 610 x 420 x 335 cm
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Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger

Since 1988 Frédéric Moser (b.1966) and Philippe Schwinger (b.1961) have been collaborating, directing first an independent theatre company "l'atelier ici et maintenant" in Lausanne. Between 1993 and 1998 they studied at the Geneva University of Art and Design. They won the Swiss Art Award 3 times in a row (1998-99-2000) as well as the Providentia Young Art Prize. In 2001 they received the 6 month Scholarship from the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart and in 2002 the One Year Studio in Berlin from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture. In 2003 they were invited to the first residence program at the Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw. They represented Switzerland at the 26th International Biennal of Contemporary Art of São Paulo in 2004. They participated in the exhibition “History Will Repeat Itself” held at Kunst Werke Berlin, traveling to Dortmund, Warsaw and Hong Kong in 2007. Solo exhibitions include Kunsthaus Zürich, Cornerhaus Manchester, Mamco Geneva and Bétonsalon Paris. They presently live in Neuchâtel.



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