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Disruptive Incidences
Jennifer Bork
Translated into English by Araceli Mangione
Déjà-Vu, 2018, solo exhibition catalogue of the awardee of the Artist Grant 2017/18, KSN-Foundation, Northeim
Meike Redeker’s video works substantively revolve around topics such as consumer goods and individuality at the perimeter of the masses or makes various aspects of habitual, human behavior a subject of discussion. By use of filmic means, Redeker questions our perception of reality. In her exhibition, Déja-Vu, she works with a number of recurring themes such as redundancy, repetition and duplication.
Déjà-vu is a kind of deception of the brain in that for an instant a new situation appears familiar or known. The result is a „fausse reconnaissance,“ a „false recognition.“ For this exact reason, it is dauntingly self-reflexive: for a brief moment it becomes clear that our continuous experience of reality is the result of a complexity of processes performed by the brain. Déjà-vu is a disruptive incident that pulls us out of our self-evident unity of space and time revealing an unreliability, thus causing discomfort.
In The Product (2018) Meike Redeker produces the uneasiness caused by déjà-vu intentionally. Her work, conceived in Northeim, Germany, makes direct use of the exhibition space, using its stringent existing architectural structure. The protagonist of the film concentrates on folding a sheet of paper that she then places onto a scanner-like machine, which is then removed by a similar-looking worker who repeats the same action again, continuing the chain. Or is the scene and thus the protagonist always actually the same? She is disguised behind by a mask, dressed in the typical laboratory blue overalls and wears green latex gloves. All features of individuality have been eradicated with the worker’s clothes. The sounds seem to consist only of the whirring and clicking of the mechanical apparatuses that lend the events of the film a tactfulness. The protagonist’s movements are adapted to this mechanical rhythm, appearing unnatural and instead rather strangely mechanized. What déjà-vu does to the human brain, by briefly dissolving the space-time fabric, is generated here via the capabilities of the assembly. This way, the provided room construction offers no end. The protagonist operates in a Kafkaesque spacial configuration of reflections and duplicates which appears to go on indefinitely. Meike Redeker works here on room and montage with a strategy that, although not associated media-specifically to the film, can still perhaps be most apparently displayed by it as “Mise en abyme” or abimization. Meaning, a story is being told within a story that is being told within another story... Not only does this method generate a certain uneasiness, it also keeps the viewer at a distance through its construction.
Also, on a time axis Redeker applies deliberate irks of perception such that scenarios at times run backwards and sometimes forward. The movements of the filmed acts thus function as familiar and alien at the same time. As in déjà-vu, points of reference in our perception of time are switched off. The precision with which the action is repeatedly carried out also signifies a certain claim to professionalism and meaning. The viewer does not get a finished product, but rather implied that there is a relevance. The resulting product remains what it is, an Odradek, to stick with Kafka.
The question of the claim of individuality plays a role in The Disquieting Muses (2016). The camera is positioned to face the clothing store. The protagonist, wearing the exact same outfit as one of the store mannequins, mimics the same pose. With a direct stare into the camera, she positions herself at the very threshold that triggers the alarm to sound at the shop’s entrance/exit. This very space marks the transition of the clothing from an industrial product to a private acquisition. This is made even clearer in the visual link set between person and mannequin as one or the two become a doppelganger or substitute of the other. Questions arise from this paradoxical relation whereas the immense importance of individuality and authenticity in our society is evidently counteracted by mass production possibilities and the social role. With this work, Meike Redeker very aptly refers to the difference between person (as an individual) and persona, which psychoanalyst C. G. Jung describes as: “...only a mask of the collective psyche, a mask that feigns individuality, making others and oneself believe that one is individual, whereas one is simply acting a role through which the collective psyche speaks... ...it is a compromise between individual and society as to what a man should appear to be.” ¹
The connection between the individual and the social group is also a theme in her work Family Portraits (2012). Four young women and men sit silently together at a dining table in front of a camera where a traditional German home cooked meal awaits them. The camera, however, does not capture the group as a whole, but cuts from individual to individual focusing on one portrait at a time. Meanwhile, the protagonists are fully aware of their own presence. Their eyes remain focused on the lens. Sometimes there is a slight smile or smirk, as in the event of a photographic shooting. Tirelessly, food is piled on their plates and then eaten, their concentration, however, does not deviate from the camera. The presence of the apparatus alters the balance of power found in this situation. Control is handed over, which becomes clearer in how this contrasts the daily act of eating. Redeker refers here to the convention of the family portrait and leads their poses with the film camera “ad absurdum.” Since the photograph seizes only a mere moment, the film camera refers to the moments before and after. Time becomes stretched and separated into many moments.
A juxtaposition of the staged portrait and the individual occurs in Redeker’s newer work, Vereine tauschen (2018). For this, Redeker contacted various clubs, societies and associations located in Northeim. Both the groups and the members that form them were portrayed filmically. The artist, however, implements an unusual arrangement for this work: each respective group is detached from their known context. Rather than depicting them among their typical club activity, places and activities are swapped. The participants were asked to wear suitable clothing. There is a tension that takes shape between the groups and their newly chosen surroundings. The artist constructs a situation in which an awareness of the relevant points of group “membership” become a focal point: can the purpose of these particular associations be deduced? Does membership require a certain physical condition or gender? To what extent is our social role discernible from our external appearance?
Redeker addresses here our perception of reality and the underlying society molding social codes that mostly occur subconsciously. She also sheds light on her own medium and her role as an artist: the groups were allowed to choose their own pose and the backgrounds were reproduced with only a few auxiliaries. She scrutinizes the “group portrait” in a conflict zone set up between authenticity and convention and gives part of the control to the group.
A complete loss of control plays out in the course of events in The Bridge (2015). The image is in poor quality and fluctuates back and forth making it immediately obvious that the material was not from a professional camera. At first, one sees a small plastic penguin in a „landscape“ of fish fillet and ice in what appears to be a freezer. The absurd narration continues to be further spun when we hear a voice from the Off. The filmmaker herself speaks into the microphone. The ambient noises are distinctive sounds in the background of someone stepping onto the street. Everything comes across as improvised. In fact, Meike Redeker’s choice of camera for this production was a cheap handheld camera made for children. The main character of the film, who hardly appears in the physical, attempts to take on a lower viewpoint, that of a small child?, while commenting on her failure with a naïve childlike voice. She can either not walk very properly or the camera is not reproducing her view. An authority over the camera is made clear through the monologue: she dominates the body movements and acts as a substitute for the gaze. In a pedestrian zone, the protagonist begins to build a bridge out of wooden ice stalks for a parade of various toy animals on the ground. She urgently appeals to passers-by, for they may eat a plastic-wrapped popsicle in order to be able to build the bridge from the remaining wooden stalk. The „animals“, as massproduced objects, also become representatives of nature by consuming something for the sake of a rescue operation. Irritated by the camera and without any understanding of the urgency of the emergency situation, the passers-by refuse: no one has time. The brought ice melts. In the end, the shoe of a hurried pedestrian crushes the already build part of the bridge. Thus, the endeavor comes to an ultimate failure. The ongoing events of everyday life proceed with these fictitious happenings in the film. Through this dissolution of the contours of fiction and reality, The Bridge subtly playfully attacks constructions of value and meaning.
Déja-Vu very coherently illustrates the focal point of Meike Redeker‘s work: it inserts irritations and produces disturbances. In this way, she points to an interesting fact: „The point of social normality is that, contrary to all appearances, it is not normal, not self-evident, but constructed in social action.“ ² The disruptive incidences show us the fragility of such a construction and indicates how much fiction is actually contained in our routines and institutions.
¹ Cf. Jung, Carl Gustav . Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. 7 Vol. 2. Ed. Translated from the German by R.F.C. Hull. Routledge Tayler & Francis Group. London and New York. 18 Dec 2014. p. 225-6.
² Cf: Ahrens, Jörn: Zur Fragilität gesellschaftlicher Realität, in: Störfälle: Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften, 2-2011, p. 77. (Note of the author: Jörn Ahrens speaks mainly of incidents in the context of violent crime. His observations, however, also represent a profitable finding for the staged incidents described here.)