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Dreams of the Rat Race 2 (No Exit), 2014, projected video installation

Kelise Franclemont, still from 'Dreams of the Rat Race 2 (No Exit)', 2014, projected video, duration 15mins (looped), in 'Office Party' as part of 'Office Sessions III', East India docks, London. Photo credit Kelise Franclemont.
Kelise Franclemont, still from ‘Dreams of the Rat Race 2 (No Exit)’, 2014, projected video, duration 15mins (looped), in ‘Office Party’ as part of ‘Office Sessions III’, East India docks, London. Photo credit Kelise Franclemont.

This is the second version of “Dreams of the Rat Race 2 (No Exit)”, a short looping video [15:03] in which I engage with this office space as my memory of my own prior office career… That 20 years always felt like kind of a trap, or like Sartre’s “no exit”… The viewer can be part of this nightmare; as they stand in front of the projection, their shadow becomes included in the memory of that former life…around and around never really getting anywhere… this time, there is a running course marked in the circuit of approximately 330m. The viewer goes ’round and ’round and occasionally, another runners appear in the frame.

More Links and info about Office Party

Exhibition details:  Office Sessions III is at Anchorage House, 2 Clove Crescent, E14 2BE (East India on the DLR).

“Office Sessions III” is open to the public on all three floors (4-6) on the following dates:

  • 27 November 2014:  6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
  • 29 November 2014:  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
  • 30 November 2014:  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Please note there is also a performance piece by Kelise Franclemont scheduled on this date from 11AM, “Right to Movement Rat Race (an exercise in subjectivity and space)”, so look out for the marathon runners (and maybe stick around to cheer them on)!

  • 5 December 2014:  6:30 PM til late
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Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon

Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, 'Right to Movement Rat Race - Office Party Marathon', 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Kelise Franclemont, Jonathan Slaughter. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Kelise Franclemont, Jonathan Slaughter. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.

A group of runners will pace around and around and around this uncommonly short course (of approximately 330m) in order to make up the marathon distance of 42K. Some people sign up for runs like this for the challenge, or to achieve a particular fitness goal; others have nothing better to do on a Sunday afternoon.

“Making the mundane tolerable”

What else happens besides work in the workplace? Outside the norm when the conventions of behaviour are relaxed for a while. A ritual that acts as a pressure valve. Making the mundane tolerable.

— Adam Zoltowski, artist and curator of “Office Party” (12 Nov – 5 Dec 2014)

This particular race is a response to the site itself…a circular office would be a perfect (and perfectly ridiculous) race track demonstrating and documenting (thru video and still image), the silliness that is running for 4-6 hours at a time (marathon runners have to be a bit mad no?) as well as the silliness that is containing this 42km in a 350 metre track (130 laps, give or take)…

Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, 'Right to Movement Rat Race - Office Party Marathon', 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Kelise Franclemont, Jonathan Slaughter. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Kelise Franclemont, Jonathan Slaughter. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.

A number of people from the Right to Movement running club have been invited to participate, as a sort of preparation for the upcoming Palestine Marathon in Bethlehem, which sees runners going around a necessarily abbreviated course multiple times because an enormous concrete wall prevents a single circuitous route of 42K.

Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, 'Right to Movement Rat Race - Office Party Marathon', 2014, performance, duration varies. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.

At the same time, this race would be reminiscent of “the rat race” that this office space once embodied; the endless cycle of getting up, going to work, “making a living”, coming home, sleep, get up again next day, and start again. Over and over. Another kind of madness…

Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, 'Right to Movement Rat Race - Office Party Marathon', 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Kelise Franclemont. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Kelise Franclemont. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.

Suddenly this race becomes an experiment in the subjectivity of time and place…there will be no markers along the course to indicate distance, nor will there be a race clock, leaving the runner to decide:  when is enough, enough.

What was the point of this “good cause” marathon, we all wondered… a race in which we clamour for attention, look at me doing good things, yet at the end, almost no one would bear witness but the runners themselves? An expression of the artist trying once again to be noticed, to be seen as working hard, striving determinedly to be recognised for her passionate sincere goodwill… soon easily forgotten as a near-nothingness. All that hard work for nothing changed at all. Isn’t that what much of activism feels like, a rush of runner’s high followed by numbness and forgetting as soon as a shiny new start-line banner is unfurled, and the next race is called.

Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, 'Right to Movement Rat Race - Office Party Marathon', 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Nalini Thapen. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Adam Zoltowski, Nalini Thapen. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.

More Links and info about Office Party

Exhibition details:  “Office Sessions III” is at Anchorage House, 2 Clove Crescent, E14 2BE (East India on the DLR).

“Office Sessions III” is open to the public on all three floors (4-6) on the following dates:

  • 27 November 2014:  6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
  • 29 November 2014:  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
  • 30 November 2014:  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Please note there is also a performance piece by Kelise Franclemont scheduled on this date from 11AM, “Right to Movement Rat Race (an exercise in subjectivity and space)”, so look out for the marathon runners (and maybe stick around to cheer them on)!

  • 5 December 2014:  6:30 PM til late
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, 'Right to Movement Rat Race - Office Party Marathon', 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Jonathan Slaughter, Kelise Franclemont, Robin, Nalini Thapen. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, documentation of performance, ‘Right to Movement Rat Race – Office Party Marathon’, 2014, performance, duration varies. Pictured (l-r): Jonathan Slaughter, Kelise Franclemont, Robin, Nalini Thapen. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Thomas Butler.
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Contemporary art and unexpected encounters of the soiree – ‘Office Sessions III’ and ‘Office Party’ – London

Public blog post about “Office Party” which mentions also my performance piece on Sunday 30 November, the “Office Party Rat Race”. The image in this photo is from “Dreams of the Rat Race (No Exit)” – a projected video work, duration 2:23 (looped).

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Dreams of the Rat Race 1 (No Exit), 2014, projected digital video

(if video doesn’t auto-play, click to watch vimeo here:  https://vimeo.com/112634742 )

Dream of the Rat Race 1 (No Exit), 2014, projected digital video, 2:23 (looped)

A short looping video in which I engage with this office space as my memory of my own prior office career… That 20 years always felt like kind of a trap, or like Sartre’s “no exit”… The viewer can be part of this nightmare; as they stand in front of the projection, their shadow becomes included in the memory of that former life…around and around never really getting anywhere…

Installation view at Office Sessions III: Office Party

curated by Adam Zoltowski

Kelise Franclemont, Installation view of 'Dreams of the Rat Race (No Exit)', 2014, projected digital video, 2:23 mins (looped). Photo credit Kelise Franclemont.
Kelise Franclemont, Installation view of ‘Dreams of the Rat Race (No Exit)’, 2014, projected digital video, 2:23 mins (looped). Photo credit Kelise Franclemont.
Kelise Franclemont, 'Dreams of the Rat Race (No Exit)', 2014, projected video, duration 2:23 (looped), in 'Office Party' as part of 'Office Sessions III', East India docks, London. Photo credit Louise Wheeler.
Kelise Franclemont, ‘Dreams of the Rat Race (No Exit)’, 2014, projected video, duration 2:23 (looped), in ‘Office Party’ as part of ‘Office Sessions III’, East India docks, London. Photo credit Louise Wheeler.

More links and info about Office Party

Exhibition details:  “Office Sessions III” is at Anchorage House, 2 Clove Crescent, E14 2BE (East India on the DLR).

“Office Sessions III” is open to the public on all three floors (4-6) on the following dates:

  • 27 November 2014:  6:30 PM – 10:00 PM
  • 29 November 2014:  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
  • 30 November 2014:  11:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Please note there is also a performance piece by Kelise Franclemont scheduled on this date from 11AM, “Right to Movement Rat Race (an exercise in subjectivity and space)”, so look out for the marathon runners (and maybe stick around to cheer them on)!

  • 5 December 2014:  6:30 PM til late
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‘arabic coffee’, 2014, performance and installation

Kelise Franclemont, 'arabic coffee', 2014, performance and installation in 'Collaborationem' at St Saviour's Church, Pimlico, London. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Tom Butler.
Kelise Franclemont, ‘arabic coffee’, 2014, performance and installation in ‘Collaborationem’ at St Saviour’s Church, Pimlico, London. Image courtesy the artist. Photo credit Tom Butler.

The centuries-old coffee ritual is a custom of deep cultural significance, where this rich dark drink, often served with dried dates or other sweetmeats, is a traditional gesture of warm welcome offered to all guests who happen by. An old Middle Eastern proverb goes something like, “A single cup of coffee creates a friendship that lasts for 40 years”.

My first taste of Arabic coffee was nearly 25 years ago, by the hand of a Palestinian woman who is also my friend. What fond memories I have of the many enjoyable hours accompanied by these tiny cups, and not long after that first afternoon, how proud I was to serve from my own ibrik, a very tasty and authentic “qahweh arabiya” to make my Palestinian husband feel right at home.

It’s many years later, and those friends are miles away in a time that was decades ago; nonetheless, they are never far from mind and even now, I often crave this delicious drink, stirred with so many memories.

In ‘arabic coffee’, I have appropriated this beautiful act of hospitality again as my own, in order to explore an aspect of my personal identity as I create a moment that is enriched by sharing in which I invite guests to share a cup of coffee and a conversation with me, making memories with new friends and old.

‘arabic coffee’ is part of ‘Collaborationem’, a group exhibition at St Saviour’s Church, Pimlico, from 3-6 July 2014.

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Underground gallery becomes a dream vault – ‘Live in your Dreams’ at The Crypt, St Pancras, London

Group exhibition in which I participated, Februrary 2014. The work that was shown in ‘Live in your Dreams!’ was a performance and installation entitled, ‘limn reveries’.

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‘limn reveries’, 2014, drawing/performance/installation

in Live in your dreams! exhibit at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras

Kelise Franclemont, drawings from 'limn reveries', 2013. Image courtesy the artist.
Kelise Franclemont, drawings from ‘limn reveries’, 2013. Image courtesy the artist.

From 26 February through 2 March 2014, I’ll be doing a drawing/performance piece called “limn reveries”, in a group exhibition “Live in your Dreams!” at The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras Church, Euston, London. The exhibition is curated by Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro, whose research and interests are focused on curation as well as making his own work related to art and science.

“limn reveries”

Which is just an old fashioned way of saying, I’m recording dreams… Basically, what I’ll be doing is attempting to achieve a quasi-meditative state under which I’ll conduct “automatic” (or subconscious) drawing. The thinking behind the exercise is to listen to meditation sound tracks, whereby I can  “open up” my subconscious and access the rich imagery there, and then record or draw what I see.

Or click the link to see a short film documentation of the performance/installation on opening night (26 Feb 2014). 

Some of the drawings from the performance and installation:

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More links and information

Kelise Franclemont, in ‘Limn Reveries’, 2014, performance and installation, in ‘Live in your Dreams!’ at Crypt Gallery, St. Pancras, London. Photo credit: Thomas Butler.

 

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‘taxi driver dialogue, on highway 1, halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’, installation for BA Summer Show 2013

From ‘Taxi Driver Dialogue’, 2013, audio and installation, 30 minutes, in 2013 BA Summer Show at Chelsea College of Arts, London. Image courtesy Kelise Franclemont.
From ‘Taxi Driver Dialogue’, 2013, audio and installation, 30 minutes, in 2013 BA Summer Show at Chelsea College of Arts, London. Image courtesy Kelise Franclemont.

‘taxi driver dialogue, on Highway 1 halfway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv’

2013, installation and digital audio with subtitles, duration 00:30:00 minutes

The listener becomes the conveyor of an unlikely conversation between two taxi drivers that starts and ends somewhere between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and back again.

Watch an excerpt on Vimeo (with subtitles): Chapter 1: Borders and Checkpoints

More links and information about ‘taxi driver dialogue’:

 

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‘broken window’ charcoal-drawn animation is part of 2013 BA grad show – Wimbledon College of Art

Kelise Franclemont, ‘broken window’, 2013, charcoal-drawn digital animation, duration 00:00:22s (looped)

A brief memory of a broken window in Nablus, Palestine. What can be broken, what can be fixed, neither remains.

More links and information about ‘broken window’

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‘Digital Subversion 1 and 2’, 2012, a two-part project curated by Dominic Head

a two-part project/installation curated by Dominic Head, showing new work by artists:

Dominic Head, Debra Singh, and Kelise Franclemont.

Digital Subversion 1:   5 March 2012
Wimbledon College of Art (PSR)
Click here to download the exhibit guide:  DigitalSubversion0001

Kelise Franclemont 'Internet killed the gallery star', 2012, postcard print on paper. Photo credit Dominic Head.
Kelise Franclemont ‘Internet killed the gallery star’, 2012, postcard print on paper. Photo credit Dominic Head.

Head writes:

Kelise Franclemont’s practice expresses the predicament of art in the digital age through a witty manipulation of canonical works of art using the tools available to digital technologies. Internet Killed the Gallery Star (2012) is a subversion of Da Vinci’s iconic Mona Lisa, displayed at the Louvre Gallery, Paris, whereby the figure is morphed, rotated and stretched to appear as a corruption of already broken data streams. Franclemont reduces the size of the portrait to that of a postcard, embellishing it with a frame that one would consider kitsch, given the content and context of the piece. She asks us to consider the relationship between canonical works of art and exclusivity, and points to notions of ubiquity in the understanding of ‘high art’.”

see Head’s blog for more on the exhibit:
http://runninginsquares.wordpress.com/2012/03/05/exhibition-digital-subversions-part-1/

 

 

 


Digital Subversion 2:  14 March 2012
Wimbledon College of Art (Room 213)
Click here to download the exhibit guide:  DigitalSubversion0002

Kelise Franclemont, 'QRitique', 2012, hand-drawing QR code on paper, framed. Image courtesy the artist.
Kelise Franclemont, ‘QRitique’, 2012, hand-drawing QR code on paper, framed. Image courtesy the artist.

“Kelise Franclemont’s second work is at the threshold between canonical works of art and all-encompassing cyberspace. The QR Code has become a common marketing device in the consumption of Western products. Franclemont here uses it as a tool for viewing works of art, making the distinct correllation between the art object and the marketplace.  Viewers must ‘activate’ the work through the technologies of the smartphone, in turn raising concerns as to the ‘exclusivity’ of art and the identity of its audience.  The QR Code becomes therefore a barrier to the truth of the artwork, it becomes the promise of something greater than itself, a link to another world, another space with unforeseeable consequences.”

 

 

Installation View:  
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kelise72/sets/72157629591760079/show/