Rhythm and Chaos, Red Sniper, 2003

On the occasion of the VIII edition of Arte all’Arte, the curators Elio Grazioli and Hou Hanru invited the collective Red Sniper to create the video installation Rhythm and Chaos.

"Red Sniper is a new interdisciplinary project born in Brussels, Belgium, from the collaboration between video artist Kendell Geers and musician Patrick Codenys. Both are well-established figures in their respective artistic disciplines, and Geers and Codenys come together to create a project aimed at developing a new philosophy of audio-visual interaction. The autonomy of musical composition in relation to visual design, and vice versa, is the starting point of their collaboration. Based on this foundation, they deconstruct, construct, and reconstruct—together and with added value from live performance—images and sounds. Red Sniper’s first public appearance takes place in April 2003 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris: Geers and Codenys present a project titled Prototype, featuring a large screen, video projections, and electronic music in Dolby surround sound… At first glance, it seems like yet another performance following the trend launched by countless DJs and VJs who populate music and electronic arts festivals and thrive in clubs and underground venues.

But only after a few minutes, it becomes clear that the proposal by the new formation is truly innovative: the moving image is treated “sonically,” then readapted visually so that it interacts with the sound, and finally the sounds are deconstructed “visually.” The process is similar to a game of chess, where neither images nor sounds have any particular right of precedence, and the outcome of the duel is at stake for all participants. The performance continuously oscillates between television and white noise, self-referential work and body music. Prototype, still in an experimental phase, was presented again in July 2003 during the “Guided by Heroes” festival at Z33 in Hasselt and at the Handelsbeurs theater in Ghent, Belgium.

On the occasion of Transart_03, Red Sniper presents a new project produced in collaboration with Arte all’Arte, which develops the previous one, titled Rhythm and Chaos. The number of screens increases to three, and in addition to video projections, the element of light comes into play – behind the screens are hidden powerful blinding white lights that alternate with the video projections. All the mixed elements come together to create a surprising audio-visual explosion full of energy and emotion. The visual element is enriched with live footage from satellite channels and film clips: history speaks, the present, covering themes ranging from pornography to the drama of war to original and comic gags. Simultaneously attractive and repulsive, Rhythm and Chaos plays on the desire to decode the virus of the visual language specific to television and cinema in order to recode it and present it as a raw experience. The visual and sound elements compete with each other in a media battle. The spirit of the hacker combines with the energy of the DJ, the irony of the Marx Brothers, the moral corruption of William Burroughs, and the subversive will of Deleuze and Guattari.

Kendell Geers is a conceptual artist of South African origin. Known as a “creator of objects” presented in the form of installations, Geers uses various elements—such as red and white tape, masks, megaphones, the sound of unexpected laughter—to create curious situations in which the viewer is compelled to question themselves. Kendell Geers tends to incorporate pop musical elements into his work: for example, at London’s Delphina Project Space, he installed a piece that played with tracks by the Sex Pistols.

Patrick Codenys is a key figure in industrial music of the late 1980s. Founder of Front 242, he gained recognition in avant-garde circles for his experimental sound work. Influenced by the anti-rock movement (Can, Neu, Faust), as well as by cinema and architecture, the band is now a duo (Codenys and Daniel Bressanutti) who also run the label Art & Strategy."

Arte all’Arte VIII, 2003