Beun

Klenz, Steffi (2015) Beun. [Exhibition/show, Photography]

3355:85497
Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

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3355:85498
Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

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3355:85499
Beun at 'Settings, Resettings, Repeat' solo exhibition, Kehrer Gallery, Berlin, Germany

Beun at 'Settings, Resettings, Repeat' solo exhibition, Kehrer Gallery, Berlin, Germany

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3355:85515
Beun at 'Stagings of a Room', London Gallery West

Beun at 'Stagings of a Room', London Gallery West

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Beun at 'Stagings of a Room', London Gallery West

Beun at 'Stagings of a Room', London Gallery West

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3355:88611
Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

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3355:88612
Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

Beun at 'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp

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'The Data Battlefield' exhibition invitation

'The Data Battlefield' exhibition invitation

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3355:88653
Beun in 'Beg, Steal & Borrow: Artists against Originality' by Robert Shore, pp. 136-138, Laurence King Publishing, October 2017

Beun in 'Beg, Steal & Borrow: Artists against Originality' by Robert Shore, pp. 136-138, Laurence King Publishing, October 2017

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3355:88654
Beun in 'Beg, Steal & Borrow: Artists against Originality' by Robert Shore, pp. 136-138, Laurence King Publishing, October 2017

Beun in 'Beg, Steal & Borrow: Artists against Originality' by Robert Shore, pp. 136-138, Laurence King Publishing, October 2017

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3355:113007
Beun at 'Beg, Steal & Borrow' exhibition

Beun at 'Beg, Steal & Borrow' exhibition

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3355:113008
Beun at 'Beg, Steal & Borrow' exhibition

Beun at 'Beg, Steal & Borrow' exhibition

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3355:113010
Beun at 'Beg, Steal & Borrow' exhibition

Beun at 'Beg, Steal & Borrow' exhibition

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3355:116604
BEUN
Creators:
Klenz, Steffi
Description/Abstract:

10 individual images; digital black & white C-Type prints framed in black frames without glass.

The series begins with an associated press-image of a concentration camp in East-Germany, which I culled from a private photographic archive based in London. I translated this image into a life-size model in the studio, following the same spatial arrangements and dimensions of the archive image. The reconstruction allowed me to produce a digital image of the space of the archive image.

Different digital software programs, which transform or erase information of the image, are applied to the same digital image. This process results in the deformation of the image and creates several fragmented versions of the same image. By digitally corrupting the image file, the image becomes fractured and transformed into a kind of non-photograph in which the digital pixels of lines and erased information become blanks in the photographic record. Beun suggests that the photographic image(s) pictures a void and articulates a sense of loss.

According to Sigmund Freud, trauma demands repetition, which results in the behavioral enactment and automatic repetition of the past: He reproduces it not as a memory but as an action; he repeats it without, of course, knowing that he is repeating... he cannot escape from this compulsion to repeat; and in the end we understand that this is his way of remembering.

Beun forces the viewer to hover over each individual image in order to combine all the fragments into one image. The effect of these uncanny fragmentations is to de-stabilise our understanding of this historically charged site. The digital manipulations of the image question the slippages of our memory and evocatively reflect on the way we reconstruct our sense of the past. Subverting traditional photographic techniques, Beun investigates exciting new languages of photographic image-making that are emerging in the second digital revolution.

Item Type:
Art/Design Item
Date:
2015
Measurements or Duration:
50 x 40 inches
Locations / Venues:
Location
From Date
To Date
FILE - International Electronic Language Festival 2022, Galeria de Arte do Sesi, São Paulo, Brazil
13 July 2022
28 August 2022
'Beg, steal, & borrow' group exhibition, Bermondsey Space, London, UK
26 February 2020
7 March 2020
'Stagings of a Room' solo exhibition, London Gallery West, London, UK
25 November 2017
15 January 2017
'The Data Battlefield' group exhibition, FotoMuseum, Antwerp, Belgium
28 April 2017
4 June 2017
'Settings, Resettings, Repeat' solo exhibition, Kehrer Gallery, Berlin, Germany
18 February 2017
25 March 2017
International juried competition, Los Angeles Center for Digital Art, USA
12 March 2015
4 April 2015
Projects or Series:
REF2021
Additional Information:

Feature of Steffi Klenz as artist, including discussion of work Beun, in Elephant Magazine, issue 29, December 2016.

Featured in book, 'Beg, steal and borrow: artists against originality' by Robert Stone, Laurence King Publishing, October 2017, p. 136-138.

Participating artists in the group exhibition 'The Data Battlefield', include David Birkin, Harun Farocki, Forensic Architecture, and Steffi Klenz.

Images of conflict have become a common phenomenon, due to 24-hour repetitive news broadcasts and social media. As an answer to society's increasing desire to capture and disseminate images of conflict, sites of dispute are no longer censored in any form but rather made into media spectacles. How, then, can we describe traumatic events or classified sites without veering into sensationalism?

The Data Battlefield shows how four international lens-based artists relate to this question. Through some of the latest technology, David Birkin (UK, 1977), Harun Farocki (DE, 1944-2014), Forensic Architecture and Steffi Klenz (DE, 1979) each open up unique conversations about our current photographic and filmic culture in relation to environments of conflict.

Schools:
School of Fine Art, Crafts & Photography
Related URLs:
Depositing User:
Amy Robinson
Date Deposited:
17 May 2017 14:12
Last Modified:
05 Sep 2022 15:52
Klenz, Steffi:
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8884-0519
Art/Design Categories:
Exhibition/show, Photography
URI:
https://research.uca.ac.uk/id/eprint/3355

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