#nick steur

[mentaltimetraveller]

Nick Steur – FREEZE, reflections (2018)

[synonymsforchurlish]

Beat goes on In A Piece of Time, by Nick Steur, the audience sit around the edges of a square, lined with old-fashioned mechanical metronomes. Above the square, a frame - lined with strip bulbs - forms a pyramid, and from the centre of that hangs a large metal pendulum. Everything is either matte black or mirror-shine; an installation as much as a performance space. The pendulum has been used in hypnosis since the 19th century. Although it has no inherently magical properties of its own, Michel Eugene Chevreul found that they could be used as a method of ‘reading’ the unconscious mind. A pendulum gives what is known as an ‘ideodynamic’ response to its operator. The tiny muscular twitches that come from stress, or tension, or our in-built guardedness manifest themselves in the swing of the pendulum which, in turn, provides a point of focus for an anxious mind. A pendulum is a natural relaxant. You know what isn’t a natural relaxant? The metronome, that’s what. 32 metronomes, even less so. It’s like every single one has got a mini-version of the bald dude from Whiplash crouched inside, sporadically slapping your face and yelling ARE YOU RUSHING OR ARE YOU DRAGGING as you try not to cry. Steur instructs his audience to set the metronomes going together in an attempt to synchronise them into a single rhythm, which they find only fleetingly. There are only brief moments of “we did it!” before some tick will tock out of place and the little sweaty Whiplash dude will throw another cymbal at you. Throughout this first half of the show, the big silver pendulum hangs there, still. Let me tell you, I was willing it to start moving. My 'ideodynamic' muscle reflexes were basically screaming for metronome respite. I was finding it genuinely tense and frustrating, like a distant car alarm that makes you hunch your shoulders, except changing so often that you can’t even find a way to block it out. In all that, the pendulum hung like the anticipation before the first touch of a massage. When it finally arrives, the swing is circular, which is probably for the best as I’d hate to be the poor buggers with 60 kilos of metal flying repeatedly at their faces. Steur looks a bit like Gandalf as he sets it going, standing in the centre and moving it around his fingers in ever-increasing revolutions. Then he releases a flue at the bottom, which starts to throw red gravel into a circle on the floor. At this point the metronomes are still going, but the gravel makes a nice consistent whooshing noise so it’s already a lot calmer. As the pendulum gradually loses momentum, Steur crouches in the centre of the floor, and the lights go out. I love sitting in the dark listening to stuff. Love it. I saw a mostly-terrible immersive thing at Vaults festival recently, but as soon as I was given a blindfold I was like “aaaaaand… relax”. They might’ve been about to club me round the head for all I knew, but those few minutes of unstimulated chill were wonderful. In A Piece of Time it was the same. When the lights on the pendulum frame are turned off, one by one, the metronomes slowly follow (thank fuck), and the reducing tick tock, the revolving whoosh, the respite from concentration… it was lovely. Meanwhile, Nick Steur turns into an actual fucking WIZARD. Dude completely disappears. No idea how. (Wizard, I tell you.) He couldn’t have walked over the red gravel because he would’ve left footprints, scuff marks at the very least, and that circular pattern was perfect. There was no trapdoor, because it would have all drained away. He couldn’t have leapt to one side and out of the space without vaulting metronomes and string and two rows of audience. I can only assume that he clung to the pendulum in night vision goggles, swinging round to turn off the metronomes like God reaching out to Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine fucking Chapel.

[openzee]

Moving Perspectives

on the exhibition walk Changement de point de Vue with works by Matea Bakula, France Distraction, Ariane Loze, Tuur Marinus, Diane Rabreau, Gaëtan Rusquet, Sarah & Charles, Nick Steur, Rinus Van de Velde, Benjamin Verhoeven and Sabbo Verleye The exhibition walk Changement de point de Vue combines installations, prints, sculptures and videos by artists that generate a shift in our perspective and put us into motion. Whether in direct physical exploration of the world, or in more abstract experimentation of our own senses, it seems as if there’s never a final viewpoint that succeeds to capture the whole complexity of reality. Diane Rabreau invites us to navigate guided by other senses than sight with her blackbox-car La Boîture. And in her second installation La Plage aux Souches she triggers our imagination with her travel stories based on different modes of perceiving our environment. But also Ariane Loze continuously shifts perspective in Movies on my Own, a movie project where she produces a shortfilm in 24h, executing all the roles herself. And Sabbo Verleye plants a subtle sign that reads ‘photo moment’ in an everyday location such as the reception desk. In the hall Benjamin Verhoeven manipulated an existing video of Picasso painting by scanning it, generating an extra layer of movement to the master’s pencil strokes, Nick Steur presents a new installation of balancing rocks that seems monumental and extremely fragile at the same time, and Gaëtan Rusquet choreographs a camera through his body and his surroundings, emphasizing the continuity between the inner and outer world. And also Sarah & Charles refer to cinematic effects by printing the name of a sound effect, triggering our imagination without an image. In the foyer Matea Bakula composes abstract compositions in various scales where textures and patterns seem to become a kind of map that resists framing. The wall drawing by Rinus Vandevelde lucidly refers to the uneven surfaces of the building. Tuur Marinus presents a series of prints that analyse animal movements by using time-lapse photography. And in the bookshop you will discover an installation by France Distraction that prints answers to a question yet to be determined.

Written in December 2015 as exhibition text for the exhibition walk Changement de point de Vue at Beursschouwburg Brussels, December 18-19 2015 More info

Photo’s

[thewordoftheartists]

The word of… Nick Steur

Fractal*. Because I am amazed about how you can find the structures, the elements, the laws of nature everywhere, if you only dig deep enough. Because I am amazed about how complicated things can get when one diverges  from those patterns. Because I am amazed about its splendering and mysterious beauty, once it is (re)(dis) covered.

[See more on The Artist and the Others]

[shebeenshow-blog]

Important: Uovo is finishing!

Today and tomorrow are the last two days to visit Uovo performing arts festival in Milan. Unfortunately, I haven't had any time in those days to go over there, so I would appreciate if you can give me any news and opinion about it. Especially, I would like to know about Nick Steur's performance on Wednesday night, is he so cool as I think??