Rhytm and Chaos Red Sniper, 2003

On the occasion of the VIII edition of Arte all’Arte, 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 after just a few minutes, it becomes clear that the proposal of this new formation is truly innovative: moving images are treated “sonically,” then re-adapted visually to interact with 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 open to all players. The performance constantly shifts between television and white noise, self-referential quotes, 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 presented a new project produced in collaboration with ARTE ALL’ARTE, developing their previous work under the title Rhythm and Chaos. The number of screens increased to three, and in addition to video projections, the element of light came into play—behind the screens were hidden powerful blinding white lights that alternated with the projections. All elements combined to create a surprising audio-visual explosion filled with energy and emotion. The visual component was enriched with live images from satellite channels and film clips: history and the present speak out, ranging from themes such as pornography to the drama of war, all the way to original and comic gags. At once both attractive and repulsive, Rhythm and Chaos plays with the desire to decode the virus of the visual language inherent in television and cinema, to then recode it and present it as a raw experience. The visual and sound elements compete with one another in a media battle. The spirit of the hacker merges with the energy of the DJ, the irony of the Marx Brothers, the moral corruption of William Burroughs, and the subversive drive 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