As photographer and filmmaker Armin Linke combines a range of contemporary image-processing technologies in order to blur the borders between fiction and reality. His artistic practice is concerned with different possibilities of dealing with photographic archives and their respective manifestations, as well as with the interrelations and transformative powers between urban, architectural or spatial functions and the human beings interacting with these environments. When the artist takes over the role of an exhibition maker in a collective approach, together with artists, designers, architects, historians and curators, narratives are procured on the level of multiple discourses.
Armin Linke shows:
Alpi, 2011, 64:00 min
Alpi is the result of seven years of research on contemporary perceptions of the landscape of the Alps, juxtaposing places and situations across all eight bordering nations and spanning the territories of four languages. In the film, the Alps are encountered like an island that is connected to various global transformations. We undertook many journeys in the alpine region, which, ironically, led us as far as Dubai. The film shows the Alps as a key location, owing to its delicacy and environmental importance, where one can observe and study the complexity of social, economic, and political relationships. In the Europe of today, the Alps are a hotbed for modernity and its illusions. – Armin Linke, 2010
Going to the Alps? Thinking of trekking outdoors? Dreaming of skiing in Switzerland? Watch Armin Linke′s film first. Beware. You will always be inside, deep inside laboratories, factories, ski resorts, or Swiss bunkers hidden in the mountains. Armin Linke has succeeded in doing with film what he has been doing for years with photography: situate the envelopes inside which our existence unfolds. This is the most uncritical film ever made about the utter artificiality of the modern world. But “uncritical” has to be taken just as positively as “artificial.” – Bruno Latour, 2011
Alpi is based on a research project of Piero Zanini, Renato Rinaldi and Armin Linke 2011, 16mm, transferred on Blu-ray/DCP, 5.1 sound, 16:9, colour, 60min Camera: Armin Linke, Sound: Renato Rinaldi, Editing: Giuseppe Ielasi.
Alpi was awarded at the 9th Architecture Venice Biennale and at the Graz Architecture Film Festival.
Armin Linke (b. 1966 in Milan, Italy) lives in Milan and Berlin. Through work with his own archive, as well as with other historical archives, Linke challenges the conventions of photographic practice, whereby the questions of how photography is installed and displayed become increasingly important. When the artist takes over the role of an exhibition maker in a collective approach, together with artists, designers, architects, historians and curators, narratives are procured on the level of multiple discourses. He is guest professor at the HfG Karlsruhe, at the IUAV Arts and Design University in Venice and Research Affiliate at MIT Visual Arts Program Cambridge.He is currently professor at the HfG Karlsruhe.
Armin Linke’s web site: www.arminlinke.com