Franco-German media artist Enkidu rankX [ınˈkiːdu ræŋk eks] was born 1972 in Saarbrücken / Germany. After his studies in Belgium he settled down in Berlin in 1996 where he is working and living up to this day. His work is comprised of video-art, glitch-art, installations and interaction with dance and theatre. “My art deals with issues such as relational miscommunication, the effect of technology on the human condition and the loss of identity that comes with the advent of virtualization an simulation.”
Heaven… I’m in heaven, And my heart beats so that I can hardly speak. And I seem to find the happiness I seek, When we’re out together dancing cheek to cheek.
“my_dear_heaven” is a part of my post privacy glitch porn art series “her_face”. Her face deals with the depiction of the female face or its omission for that matter in modern day web pornography. In this instance, the source material was actually a transvestite / transsexual / transgender male in beautiful agony. While seeing it, it reminded me about that song „cheek to cheek“ and it still does every time I see it.
„53D1468B“ is a part of my post privacy glitch art series „her_face“. Her face deals with the depiction of the female face or its omission for that matter in modern day web pornography. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t condemn either the participants nor the producers of the original material. It is a wide spread cliché that all (at least) female actresses are bound to or forced into porn against their will and suffer pain and degradation without consent. Truth of the matter is I cannot judge what happened here because I don’t know the circumstances under which it was filmed. But that is missing the point anyway.
„Terraforming?“ is quiet obvious in what it wants and says. The main question uttered there could be: „do we really need to terraform other planets (like Mars) when at the same time we are gladly destroying our own habitat – planet Earth“. Also: „is space like a giant vagina we have to fuck (forgive the expression) with a giant rocket and ejaculate astronauts like space seeds?“. Further: „What if technology evolves beyond us and produces self-aware robots that just might see us a an antiquated form of life and decides to get rid of us…“ These are questions we have to ask ourselves… in my opinion.
I have always had a perverted and fetishistic relationship to space exploration. To me it used to symbolize the future in itself, all the good that man is capable of – a dream of a better world. Nowadays space exploration is mainly about war, espionage and resources. It has been fully integrated in the destructive logic of our here and now instead of remaining the beacon of adventure, exploration and progress – it simply has been capitalized like everything else in this world. Well, that is a naive vision, I agree, for space exploration has emerged out of the military-industrial complex, mainly a a war machine… agreed! But it used to inspire this optimistic and progressive emotion not just with me but also with so many others! „The future used to be a better place“ says the old and bitter artist 😉
“before the fuck”, social glitch, 4000x3000px, 2012-2014
Sometimes, no need for glitching, society glitches all by itself. Some call this post privacy art…
“before the fuck” is an ongoing series of digital stills taken from porn sites and chat pages in that particular moment, when the user / actor leaves the room and us with that distinctive feeling of loneliness and bleak despair. It is a look inside the sadness and harshness of modern day sexuality when confronted with ‘the market’.
„Symbol Wald“ is somewhat of a hermetic movie as it examines the dimension of symbols as complex basis for our understanding of the / our world. It has been influenced by the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein and rephrasing his famous expression as a question: „…where do the limits of my language determine the limits of my world…“. Complex and often ambiguous symbolic ideas as opposed to distinctly unambiguous quasi iconic ideas shape our consciousness and allows for language to describe the in-between it is so often denied access to with its simple and constructive logic. I have written a short essay on the matter, if you want you can further dwell in this intellectual concept here (the essay is in German)…
The short is not a philosophical in itself though, instead it tries to reconcile the intellectual uncertainty mentioned above with the emotional uncertainty of our being in this world. There is a strange association I have with this emotional dilemma and the feeling I get being in the woods. Being torn between my French background (symbolized for me by the sea) and my German background (symbolized by the forest) I am equally divided between what you could call a more carnal and a more romantic view of the world that often times contradict each other. So it is with the two cultures I grew up in, the French and the German one. But the Forest has always evoked a very un-/protective feeling within me. I love being there as much as I fear it!
I did know I could not hold this up! But the main goal stays untouched: remastering and republishing my catalogue as you should being a digital artist. Codecs change, resolutions too and it is a good occasion the reassert the content and packaging of the stuff I have been producing for the last 15 years or so…
Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube. Mehr erfahren
At height of the Afghan war (post 9/11) this video tried to bridge the historic gap between the Vietnam war & Nixon’s administration and the current events with George W. Bush in power. I don’t need to elaborate on the (military) history of Afghanistan and all its potential conquistadores starting with Alexander the Great… Afghanistan has always been an „object of desire“ last not least for its opium production. But foremost it is the last gate between the Occident and the Orient geographically, culturally and politically. Now, more than 10 years later, nothing has really changed to my eyes. Afghanistan was not democratized, on the contrary, other countries like Syria, Iraq, Libya and so on have been Afghanized. And like Vietnam, Afghanistan has 40 years or more of instability and chaos waiting for…
„Space – Nixon Remix“ also deals with the almost erotic relationship between high tech (i.e. space exploration during Nixon admin / bio tech during Bush admin), war (Afghanistan / Vietnam), politics (the politics of fear both parties used) and paranoia (self explanatory). The film was almost entirely live mixed to the music for 2003 was also the high time of my VJing activities and it is a testimony to that early, mainly clip based period of VJing when that art form was in its infancy.
In Egyptian mythology the feminine takes many forms and disguises. One of the countless god-form and mythic figures that habit the Egyptian pantheon is Bastet. She is pretty close to what the Roman culture identifies as Venus and the Greek culture once called Aphrodite, a goddess of love and fertility. Yet it is not that simple. She is the nagging, youthful and (almost) virgin version of the woman, ‚ready for pregnancy‘, in contrast to for example Sechmet, portrayed as a Lion which is more descriptive of a motherly yet fierce kind of a woman that already has given birth and now protects her own. You could say that, without uttering any personal preference, that she is the immature version of the female principle whilst other female goddesses like Sechmet (with whom she was later merged) or the fully accomplished (later) Isis represent more ‚grown up‘ versions of that idea. There are many more interesting female characters in Egyptian mythology, take Maat (goddess of truth and justice) just to cite one example. But the here shown film focuses on the dichotomy between Bastet and Sechmet.
The film „Bastet“ asks if there is such a thing a female (or gender) specifics, how these could be utilised and stereotyped and what our modern culture does with that. I once saw a movie, I guess it was a Tarantino one: an arms catalogue was shown where naked women presented automatic rifles. By the time I thought it was a perfect metaphor and a wonderful joke until I realized that this was actually real. Such catalogues indeed do exist… The video essay also hints at the close relationship between male dominated technology and the male sex (organ). This video is NSFW!
„Inv_nat“ explores the sensual relationship between 2 obvious antagonists pairings that are „nature vs. culture“ and “biology vs. technology”. In its aphoristic fashion, “inv_nat” establishes an erotic encounter between things we might find contradictory yet I believe these are not opposites but closely related and intertwined. When we speak of nature for example we think of the modern day garden that our planet has become. We have never lived in the wilderness or so it seems because the nature of the anthropocene is dominance over the wild i.e. barbaric through culture and technology resulting in culture. In other words culture is what we make of our biologic nature through usage of technology. The idea of untainted, untouched nature is a bucolic illusion, a dream of virginity, a fantasy that has found its in the fascist ideologies of the 20th century for they where rooted within those “back to nature” movements from the end of the 19th century. Take the “Volkskörper” (body of [a] people) metaphor used by the Nazis throughout their reign of terror and you’ll get what I mean.
“inv_nat” was produced for and displayed first during the exhibition “tiefergelegt” which took place in Berlin in 2002 and involved many artists that still form a collaboration network called Einheit_7 e.V..
„a_photon” is a short quasi-philosophical essay that deals with the limits of teleology with regard to coincidence or chance. As our lifespan is limited, we are driven by intention and purpose but, with ever shifting trajectories, can never afford to doubt our final goals. That life often evolves in a very different direction than we initially intended it to is a tautology. That we can and must be happy with what we have yet strive for more is being iterated again and again, it does not change the fact that it is no satisfying answer to the real philosophical problem that is ‚being‘ itself. To my mind, it is the biggest mystery of them all.
“a_photon” was realized in early 2002, the text was read by Nick Russel (thanks again for that) and the music was composed and performed by Mr. & Mrs.T. It was realized using only win-/webdings with Flash.
In this series of posts I want to present to you one film a day from my video art / short film collection. I will here present remastered and annotated version of my former work starting with „city“ from 2001.
Mit dem Laden des Videos akzeptieren Sie die Datenschutzerklärung von YouTube. Mehr erfahren
The short „city“ was clearly influenced by the events of September 11, 2001. But it also draws its imagery and energy from the vibrant city that was Berlin in the late 90’s and early 2K’s. Nowadays (in 2014) it can be difficult imagining what open and undetermined ecosystem this city provided for its inhabitants. All the old structures had dissolved and newer ones had not yet formed. Berlin was then an open space with the promise of a free and imaginative lifestyle well hidden from the lurking eyes of neo-liberal investment bankers. It did not last very long.
Furthermore “city” deals with the permanent deconstruction / reconstruction of that organism that is a modern day metropolis but also to the permanent disorientation that goes with it. It finally is an homage to that great masterpiece that is “Berlin – Die Sinfonie der Großstadt” by Walter Ruttmann and furthermore to Dsiga Wertow and his “Man with the movie camera”.
