TOMO Y OBLIGO
2016
HD Video, 5 Min,
"Tomo y Obligo" is a short Music Video. Its core is a tango song
by Carlos Gardel from 1931.
In the movie "Luces de Buenos Aires" made the same year this song came up.
The musical part which was performed in a bar was copied by Neubauer
and transformed into a contemporary/futuristic version. With help
of colorful costumes, minimalistic set pieces and odd instrumentation
a weird and fantastical Sci-Fi version of the song was made.
This movie stands for individual freedom
and questions stereotypes at every level.
YES THEY ARE CALLING THE BATMAN!
2014/15
Motorized loudspeaker with Bat-Signal 0,8m x 0,8m x 0,8m
Yes, They Are Calling The Batman! is a kinetic sculpture
which can be called via telephone (Cell phone or landline.) .
The object will turn to the location of the caller.
This motion will be seen by the audience.
After getting in the right position the ultrasonic loud speakers
inside the sculpture will activate and form a Bat-Signal of invisible waveforms.
Animals (dogs, cats, etc.) and some sensitive humans will hear the sound.
RAINBOW ORDER
2014/15
Rainbowbuilder 1,6m x 0,9m x 0,6m
Rainbow Order is an interactive sculpture that creates a rainbow
by getting sent two text messages.
Two mobile phone users need to send a specific text message.
One message has to be WATER and the other must have LIGHT as its content.
They have to send it simultaneously
and should then look though the holes into the darkness of the box.
Inside that box which is exhibited evolves a small rainbow.
Those two messengers who stand in front of the box now hold hands
so that they enjoy this romantic moment even more.
V E N T U S F L A T
2014/15
For your mental hygiene 5m x 4m x 5m
v e n t u s f l a t is a sculpture that will blow people's minds,
and cast away evil and bad thoughts.
This kinetic sculpture is a mash-up of different idols
representing godly entities from all over the world.
It symbolizes one of the forces of nature: wind.
Aesthetically, it is a borderline creature -
somewhere between the intense presence of a sacred piece,
and the recreational effect of an amusement park.
While standing in front of the sculpture, people are blown by several massive fans
- not in an aggressive way but for fun. It will touch them physically
and tickle them till they chuckle. Hair will whip around, clothes will flutter about,
maybe some hats will fly -
all for the enjoyment of the bystanders AND those being blown upon.
If the person is metaphorically blown away - if all bad thoughts dissipate -
she/he has the chance to stop the fan by screaming a cheer of emphasis.
Hitting the right tone will stop the wind and the 'blown' person can walk on - relieved.
NOW PLEASE LEAVE THE RABBIT ALONE
2012
Dynamic rabbit with chocolate balls 0,7m x 1m x 0,7m
This kinetic sculpture of a rabbit roars about vanity using one completely
mirror sided and one rusty, steel sided half.
Once again the dear rabbit is the examined object of art(history)
and will be used as a bearer of symbols and connotations.
A mashup out of Dieter Roth, Joseph Beuys, Jeff Koons and Albrecht Dürer.
Like a collage of associations, a (re)combination of known sculptures
and images. A motor enlives the animal so it turns like a radar on its own axis
and sneaks through his territory. Inspects everything and mimics the viewer
at the same time. Reflecting him and inserting him into the sculpture itself.
Leaving the viewer inside the silhouette of the rabbit.
The chocolate balls - made of a special recipe - are almost symbolising
the four artists and are not proper to get eaten during the exhibition.
Although they are quite tasty.
THE METAPHYSICAL POSSIBILITY OF JOY
IN THE MIND OF SOMEONE UNHAPPY
2011
Stuffed Shark 4m x 2,2m x 1,4m
(...) Estrangement through an animal costume also leads to
the work "The Metaphysical Possibility of Joy in the Mind
of Someone Unhappy" (2011). Of course the presentation of
a shark measuring over three meters and resembling a
stuffed animal is a satire of Damien Hirst's genuine shark
preserved in formaldehyde.
Hirst's sculpture entitled "The Physical Impossibility
of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" (1991) presented
something which, in itself, was nothing out-of-the-ordinary.
Preserved sharks, at least those stuffed by taxidermists,
are familiar from museums for natural history. Introducing
it as a work of art into an institution for exhibiting
contemporary art, Hirst detaches the shark from all relevance
for the perspective of natural history and reduces it to
aspects of death and terror, and thereby to the visitor's
fear-impelled lust for sensationalism.
Just as the teddy-bear possesses nothing of the dangerousness
of a real bear and, as a play-doll similar to a person,
takes on only the soft, fluffy curves of a bear, so a
plastic-skinned shark, in spite of the same size, has none
of the death-connected attributes of the shark presented
by Damien Hirst.
Neubauer instead makes use of the Hirstian shark as that
which it long ago turned into, namely as a media-disseminated
icon of recent art history. Independently of contents and
context, the »ready-made« of the shark, just like the urinal
of Duchamp, has become a symbol of »modern« art which says
less about art itself than about the media's perception and
dissemination of art. It is a schematization which is the
basis for every persiflage and exaggeration - the drag queen
just as the teddy-bear and the stuffed shark. (...)
by Rene Zechlin
GABI OR TWO COLOURS YELLOW
2011
HD Video 24 Min by Sebastian Egert, Sebastian Neubauer,
Per Olaf Schmidt and Tom Schön
(...) There follows: a playlet entitled
"Gabi or Two Colours Yellow".
Performance: by the dysfunctional nuclear family.
In the leading role: a seemingly depressive teddy-bear of
indefinite age which, although he is literally overwhelmed
with presents, endures his own birthday while sucking silently
on a straw. He ignores the blinking robot which is supposed
to become his friend, and likewise the cake and jello.
Sitting to his right and left are: the parents. On the right
is his mother, a garishly made-up, bearded lady with false
eyelashes and hair curlers, who fruitlessly tries to get him
to say his first word &mdash he doesn't want to say »Mama« but
instead seems intent on sucking his juice until the whole
affair is over. On the left is his father, almost as
indifferent as the son, a chain-smoking researcher, more a
crazy scientist than a well-behaved academic, who would
rather putter around his laboratory engaged in obscure
experiments rather than suffering the daily bleakness of
family life.
Mother and child, father and son can only enter into
relationships with each other in their imagination
here they are united in dance, in an absurd disco-fantasy
of ecstatic, liberated bodies, far from the unbearable
dreariness of shared meals, not without embarrassment and
yet all the more touching. In the fantasy, however, one of
the parents must always remain out in front&mdashan Oedipal
conflict, even if a symmetrical one: They compete with each
other for the favor of the child, with jello in either red
or green, and both of them are ultimately disappointed.
They seem to have ceased long ago to expect anything from
each other the bearded lady dreamily strokes the rubber
tube of the robot, but it as well is not capable of
restoring to her that which she has lost.
A sitcom without off-laughter, like a joke told endlessly
and thereby robbed of its punch line: A teddy-bear, a robot,
a bearded lady and a crazy scientist meet up with eachother ...
and then?
Then comes silence, seemingly interminable and scarcely
bearable, or a repetition of unchanging and meaningless
words and sentences which is even more unbearable
no laughter ends the torture, no crying either,
only a constant slurping.
Ultimately the only actions which help are sucking,
wine-drinking and smoking&mdashall the participants seem to
be caught here in their oral phase, passive, dependent on each
other yet incapable of entering into any sort of mutual
relationship.
Thus a petty-bourgeois family drama is distorted to the
point of recognizability as freak show and B-movie,
midway between Fassbinder and Ed Wood, colder than death
and more garish than jello. Curtain, applause. (...)
by Roland Meyer
FINALLY WE ARE ALL AN EMPTY ORCHESTRA!
2007-2011
DVD 40 Min Series of 10 Videos
in collaboration with Per Olaf Schmidt
(...) Recent video works by Sebastian Neubauer depart from the
obvious path of role-changing and costuming. They demonstrate,
however, another form of distorting appropriation.
For the series "Endlich sind wir alle ein leeres Orchester!"
(»Finally we are all an empty orchestra«) with a total of ten
videos, Neubauer uses the subtitles of short film segments
in order to distort them into a karaoke version and to
appropriate them.
During karaoke evenings, the texts of popular songs are shown
on a monitor for the purpose of singing along.
Whereas karaoke performances are concerned with the imitation
of songs and pop stars, Neubauer is not interested in an
imitation of the actors and speakers in the films. On the
contrary, instead of speaking the lines of text, he sings
the dialogues and statements. The given image and text offer
stiff resistance to the sung version. With disregard to the
content of the texts and to the context of the films, Neubauer
distorts and shifts syllables and words, and he subjects image
and text to his own interpretation.
With the video belonging to the series and entitled "Freiheit
und Verantwortung" ("Freedom and Responsibility"), it is a
matter of a segment from a documentary film with the subtitled
translation of an interview with Jean-Paul Sartre, in which
he speaks about civic freedom and responsibility.
"Now, close your eyes!" shows an extremely slowed-down scene
from Milos Forman&lsquos feature film about the American comic
Andy Kaufman, Man on the Moon (1999). With further excerpts
for instance from the American television series The Wire,
from the Late Night Show with David Letterman, from a film by
Birgit Hein, with whom Sebastian Neubauer studied, or from
an interview with the musician Ted Gaier, who speaks about
fears and the future.
Neubauer weaves together in his video series a close texture
of references to the world of television, film and
entertainment. If the series "Endlich sind wir alle ein
leeres Orchester" has the characteristics of an experiment
of personal appropriation through singing in which the
subjection of the initial material seems like a victory (...)
by Rene Zechlin
INSTALLATION 239
2002-2011
Video Installation with Research Material, 5m x 5,5m x 3,8 mn
"DVD239" is an erratic essayfilm. It is made up of collected
clips and takes form within an associative and experimental
narrative structure.
A restrained and offish voice describes adventurous journeys
through the history of time, and combines these stories with
numerous anecdotes, which come across as being memories of
personal experience. The broken, almost painterly imagery
focuses on the fragmentedness of the complex
narration, but is also meant to allude to the obvious
unreliability of memory, which we in turn use to construct
personal and global historical accounts.
By appearances, the film is a disorderly collection of travel
reports and research papers that deal with the abstract and
fleeting phenomenon of freedom, which is nonetheless utterly
crucial for individual reality. Here by analytic reflection -
there by subjective altercation - the observer is moved
to start out on a quest, meandering from island to island.
Production of this work began in 2002 with an initial trip
to Istanbul, and with the recording of field interviews
concerning the human rights situation in Turkey.
"DVD239" was completed in 2009. A publication in 2010.
In 2011 all came together for an installation.
