A site-specific installation by Lebanese artist Raed Yassin, curated by Amanda Abi Khalil. ‘Noon’ is a series of eight photographs produced by Yassin between 2010 and 2011. Shown together with a new sound piece, they compose the site-specific installation entitled ‘Postponed Noon’, which transforms the connotations of both spaces: the square outside on the one hand and the space inside the vitrine on the other.
 
Taken from different bedroom windows in Beirut, these eight photographs conjure the atmosphere of a latent dream the artist finds himself in when he wakes up – the moment when perception is blinded by daylight around noon, and becomes by alchemy a protracted contemplation, a musing daydream.
 
Both parts of the installation alter the perception of the space in which they are placed. The eight windows in the photographic series are confined to an interior space, although the images open to an exterior cityscape, a distant one: the city of Beirut. In the square, a 24-hour-long sound piece recorded in the artist’s apartment in Beirut matches this intimate terrain of reverie, albeit interrupted at times by mundane sounds that transform Vitrine into an apartment.
 
‘Postponed Noon’ invites us to this “escapade of imagination” through the “finesses of experience of intimacy”, in which the intimate space activated by the sound piece opens up to a view of a strange yet familiar city, appearing blurred through eight windows.
 
Inspired by Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, the concept of this indoor-outdoor installation confuses the obvious geometry and dialectics of division between outside and inside when brought into play in metaphorical domains.
 
“In any case, inside and outside, as experienced by the imagination, can no longer be taken in their simple reciprocity; consequently, by omitting geometrical references when we speak of the first expressions of being, by choosing more concrete, more phenomenologically exact inceptions, we shall come to realize that the dialectics of inside and outside multiply with countless diversified nuances.” Gaston Bachelard, “The Dialectics of Outside and Inside” in The Poetics of Space.
 
Supported by the British Council.
 
BIOGRAPHY
 
Raed Yassin was born in Beirut in 1979. He graduated from the theatre department at the Institute of Fine Arts in Beirut in 2003. An artist and musician, Yassin‘s work often originates from an examination of his personal narratives and their workings within a collective history, through the lens of consumer culture and mass production. He has exhibited and performed his work in numerous museums, festivals and venues across Europe, the Middle East, the United States and Japan, including the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo (2013), the Beirut Art Center (2013), the New Museum in New York (2012), Kalfayan Galleries, Athens (2011), Museum of Photography Thessaloniki (2011); “Sharjah Biennial 10” (2011), Delfina Foundation in London (2010-2011) where he has completed a residency program, “Manifesta 8” in Murcia (2010-2011), Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris (2011), De - Ateliers in Amsterdam following a 2-year residency, “Home Works 5” in Beirut, (2010) and Photo Cairo 4 (2008). Upcoming shows include: Singapore Art Museum (2013) and the 4th Thessaloniki Biennial of Contemporary Art (2013). Yassin was awarded the Fidus Prize for The Best of Sammy Clark at Beirut Art Center’s Exposure (2009), the Abraaj Capital Art Prize (2012), the AFAC grant for production (2010), the YATF grant for production (2008 & 2012) and the Cultural Resource grant for production (2008). Yassin is one of the organizers of IRTIJAL Festival, and has released 11 music albums and founded the production company Annihaya in 2009. He is also a founding member of “Atfal Ahdath” a Beirut based art collective. He currently lives and works in Beirut and represented by Kalfayan Galleries, Athens.
 
VITRINE Bermondsey Square
Bermondsey Square, London SE1 3UN (Tube: London Bridge)
Daily 24-hours. FREE.
www.vitrinegallery.co.uk
info@vitrinegallery.co.uk
02074076496

WW SURGERY - professional development advice & consultation for artists.
 
WHO: all art practitioners and art organisers: artists, curators, students, or those returning to their art practice after career/family breaks.
 
WHAT: WW offers one-to-one sessions for art practitioners needing tailored professional development advice in the following areas: professional development / artist portfolio reviews / approaching galleries / curating / promotion/marketing / starting your own gallery/project space
 
WHEN: on-going
 
PAYMENTS: n/a
 
CHARGES: WW SURGERY: £50 one-to-one tailored sessions, approx 1.5hrs / DROP-IN CLINIC: £15 per person, last Wednesday of every month 12 - 2pm. Tea & coffee provided / SKYPE SURGERY: £50 one-to-one sessions via skype video-link. approx 1.5hrs.
 
DETAILS: The WW duo (Debra Wilson & Chiara Williams) has supported and mentored a number of exceptionally talented artists, assisting them in realising their potential, supporting their successes and promoting them to wider audiences. The pair has lead or participated in numerous talks, courses and conferences in the UK and internationally.
 
APPLY: Please call 07531342128 or email wwgallery@gmail.com to book
 
CONTACT: wwgallery@gmail.com
www.wilsonwilliamsgallery.com/surgery.htm

Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied: One Terabyte of Digital Age
 
18 April - 17 June 2013
 
The cultural foundation for today‘s web was not created by Tim Berners-Lee, Mark Zuckerberg or Tom Anderson, but by its users, inside the tiny spaces they were assigned by Internet Giants.
The exhibition One Terabyte Of Kilobyte Age showcases thousands and thousands of amateur home pages from the free web hosting service Geocities, from the second half of the 1990s. Established in 1995 and purchased by Yahoo in 1999, Geocities was suddenly shut down by Yahoo in 2009. Realising its cultural significance, the Internet Archive team managed to rescue an incomplete portion of Geocities which now lives on as a massive downloadable Torrent file.
 
Over the period of the show, Olia Lialina and Dragan Espenschied will present a stream of snapshots of this lost city and its archival ruins, documenting the visual culture of the web and the creativity of its users. The project provides a glimpse into web publishing when users were in charge of design and narration in contrast to the automated templates of Facebook, YouTube and Flickr.
 
About the artists:
 
Moscow-born artist Olia Lialina has, for the past decade, produced many influential works of network-based art: My Boyfriend Came Back from the War (1996), Agatha Appears (1997), First Real Net Art Gallery (1998), and Last Real Net Art Museum (2000). Currently she is a professor at Merz Akademie in Germany. Lialina writes on digital culture, net art and web vernacular.
 
Dragan Espenschied, born in Germany. His music and online art has received international acclaim. He co-founded the home computer band Bodenständig 2000 that toured and released records throughout Europe and the USA. He has also won the Webby Awards People’s Voice NET ART (2004), and the ZKM International Media Art Award (2001).
 
Since 2002 Olia and Dragan have worked together. Among their collaborations are Zombie and Mummy (2002-2003), Midnight (2006), and Online Newspapers (2004, 2008, 2013), Digital Folklore Reader (2009). Individually and as collaborative partners, the work of both artists has been exhibited extensively online and at venues including Ars Electronica, Linz; the New Museum, New York; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; Transmediale, Berlin; Havana Biennial, Cuba; ACAF, Alexandria; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; ABC Gallery, Moscow; ZKM, Karlsruhe; Madison Square Park, New York.