DANIELLE DE PICCIOTTO AND ALEXANDER HACKE / "A PRIORI TEMPO"

Gallery / Residency Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke: “a priori tempo” Cube Gallery, MeetFactory 12. 5. – 5. 6. 2011 opening on Thursday, May 12, 7pm         The artist couple Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke will be presenting their audio/visual installation „a priori tempo„ on the 12th of May 2011 at 5pm in the Cube Gallery of the MeetFactory. The installation is an examination of time, thoroughly considered through many different viewpoints and media approaches. „The fascinating thing about time is that it is simultaneously a personal and subjective measuring unit although it is a neutral and objective sequence matter. Depending on which perspective one chooses to treat time with, it results in either being dominant and restrictive or impressionable and susceptible. Our modern lives are usually dominated by its strict rule. How to escape this dogma on which industrialism formed our contemporary life style “Time is Money” and to find out and examine the ambiguity of this threatening pressure was our incentive. We want to free ourselves and give time a new shape and rhythm.“   During their artistic residency at MeetFactory, Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke have built a tower in which time is presented in a subjective, personalized form with a new measuring rhythm in spite of accepting measuring units and mathematical precision. Through few months of research and preparations, the couple has developed a special space-specific spatial installation, intersecting  precise time and  personal time. Danielle de Picciotto presents in the framework of the installation her drawings and videos, depicting  Proustian memories, which give a personal shape to the notion of the past. The special quadraphonic musical installation by Alexander Hacke deals with different musical rythms and scales and their appropriate effects on the perception of time and atmosphere.  “Twelve is the beginning and the end in the traditional measurement of time and the key C-major is described in many papers on the tonal characteristics as “pure” and “clean” and “Heaven” is a metaphor commonly used in association with it. At the center, the 12 o¹clock position of the cycle of fifth resides the key of C with the frequency of 261.626 Hertz. This frequency is analog to 120 beats per minute (bpm), which incidentally corresponds to the amount of seconds in one minute.”       The artist couple Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke have been guests of the residency program at the Meetfactory from February to May 2011. They presented themselves, along with many of their friends, with a wide array of multi—genre spectacles during their artistic stay. A multimedia artist with American roots, Danielle de Picciotto is known, among other things, as the founder of the famous Berlin Love Parade and the Space Cowboys band singer. Alexander Hacke is the bass guitarist of the legendary Einstürzende Neubauten. He also devotes his time to many solo projects and film-compositions.   The residence of D. de Picciotto & A. Hacke was supported by the Czech-German Future Fund and by the Goethe-Institut. / The MeetFactory is supported by the capital city of Prague and by the Ministry of Culture of the Czech republic. Exhibition Sponsor: Audiopro.cz, Joinmusic, s.r.o // Special thanks: David Koller, Tomáš Turek, Jiří Skála More at http://www.danielledepicciotto.com/ // www.hacke.org // www.meetfactory.cz // http://www.goethe.de/   ____________________________________________  Further information: Pavel Vančát, pavel@meetfactory.cz, +420 777 076 739 Captions to the reproductions: Danielle de Picciotto and Alexander Hacke: “a priori tempo” (installation detail) © the artists