*1982 in Budapest, lives in Duesseldorf
Robert Olawuyi studied art history at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest as well as video art at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne and under Prof. Marcel Odenbach at Duesseldorf Academy of Art. He devises video installations that are often located at the intersection between figuration and abstraction, where perception becomes visible as a process of reflection. If the video material is created using a recording device, it is irrelevant whether it was recorded by oneself or was found. Its meaning is created in the process of digital editing. Robert Olawuyi sees the video loop as an extended moment of realisation that breaks up the idea of linear time.
“Ladder with a Purpose”
Residency Project
Ladder with a Purpose
2019, video sculpture
LED screens, steel structure, media player, ventilation shaft mockup
There is a ventilation shaft in the ceiling of the room; warm light falls into the room through the lamellae. Three identical 49-inch screens are installed to form a long surface. The resulting screen surface – like a ladder – leans at an angle to the wall below the venti lation shaft. On the screens, a 3-D video loop can be seen: A figure forms from sand particles and climbs up a ladder in the direction of the light.
The sand particles keep falling down and accumulating on the floor. The higher the figure goes, the more it dissolves. Just before it reaches the shaft, it collapses until nothing remains of it, only to put itself back together again from the particles a few seconds later, climb up the ladder again and dissolve again. At first glance, the effort seems hopeless and is reminiscent of the torment of Sisyphus. After several run-throughs, however, the viewer realises that the meaning and thus the purpose of this effort is to climb. The climb is a visualisation of the unfolding and dissolution of the individual – the figure moves upwards and at the same time it falls downwards, disappears. Both processes are inextricably linked and happen simultane ously, even though they may be contrary to each other.
Where The Story Unfolds, work presentation JUNGE AKADEMIE 2020