| Simultaneous Disco |
| A 2001, 120 Min, mute |
| With: Erol Nowak, Yasmin Touré, Laura and Bruno, the gifted Alice Ludvig, Christina Tsilidis, Ingrid, Agnieszka Dzierzbicka, A.G.´s friends, Veronika Bilger, Bernhard Fuchs, Styling: Rita Nowak |
| Trailer: 01:30 (6,4 MB) |
| "Warholish and dreamlike, always puritaniacal (...) In the video projection Rukschcio lets us take part on a disco party, just we will not see the masses jumping around but stay in the women´s toilet room - the whole night long." |
| Klaus Pamminger, the gallery channel.com, Dec 2001 |
| What was missing in music made at the turntable or at the PC came into being in the midnineties thanks to the visual, thus creating a new genre, combining music with the Fine Arts. This audiovisual interplay has been - and is - exciting for artists because they can show their art in new spaces, reaching audiences beyond the traditional business of exhibitions. In these earlier video productions the artists followed the respective music stream, without reflecting on the visual thematic possibilities. The soundless, yet rythmical video by the visual artist Fiona Rukschcio has not been conceived according to a specific music; she rather concentrates on the "visual pleasure" of the audience and on the "Disco" as a social place, where people want to see and be seen - pose, masquerade and even choreograph their moves. It becomes apparent in the work by Rukschcio that this specific visual approach together with its inherent possibilities of self-portrayal, contribute greatly to the entertainment and mood being created. The setting of "Simultaneous Disco" is an artificial environment, a ladies´ room under UV-fluorescent lighting, in which the artist shows a party. A fixed camera, which does not show a general view but a very small segment, observes the activity. The party guests, equipped with wigs, voluntarily flirt with the camera again and again in this highly charged environment. They take on an artificial identity and lustfully choreograph themselves. Thus "Simultaneous Disco" exposes a sort of productive voyeurism, which seems not only to charge the atmosphere and the individuals´ interacting behavior, but is an essential element of this works´ artistic composition. |
| Text: Christa Benzer, Translation: Burkhardt Rukschcio, Birgit Rukschcio and Steve Ball |