EVERYTHING I DO (I DO IT FOR YOU)
Jean Baptiste Bayle, Michael Bell Smith, Lars Laumann, Lina Viste Groenli, Benjamin Alexander Huseby, Nils Bech, Ida Ekblad,
Anders Nordby, Dan Persson
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Performances by Jean Baptiste Bayle, Dan Persson and Nils Bech.
Curated by Hanne Mugaas, November 2005, Projekt 0047, Berlin
Download the whole essay here
Everything I do (I do it for you) is a project carried out both in the form of an exhibition and as a one-night series of music based performances. The love song by Bryan Adams was one of the major number-one hit singles of the generation of the participating artists, in this context referring to their artistic practices including notions of music, sampling, imaging and media, internet, copyright and hacking. Coming from or inhabiting these structures, by being present in or bringing the mediation into an art context, the participants move in-between by posing questions of art and context, means of distribution and art versus non-art. Everything I do (I do it for you) also includes a third point, acting as an introduction to the artist's existent work within non-art contexts.
The typing of Everything I do (I do it for you) obtains 260 000 hits from Google, the majority containing the lyrics of the song, downloads and cover versions in the form of ring tones, midi and karaoke. Brandy did a cover. A rumour involving Bon Jovi exists. ¡§How to-¡§ hacks on how to modify the song is of course present. The song has been used and reused, and is made available in different forms, by different means, intentions and aesthetics throughout the Internet. These means of distribution changes the song and the memory of it through re-appropriations and sampling, but also through availability and the distribution itself. Everything I do (I do it for you) was originally a soundtrack. The movie was "Robin Hood- Prince of Thieves". In the case of the exhibition the interest lies in the give and take of culture and how it affects art, art context, as well as what is allowed into the definition of art.
Jean Baptiste Bayle is interested in this Robin Hood- component of the Internet: the notion of giving and receiving. As the web is based on exchange and distribution, when publishing files on the web one is automatically giving away for the sake of others, the reason being either to inform, please or shock. The giving-away is common language on the web, and contributions are affluent. Bayle is implicitly arguing for less of a rupture between artistic interventions and distributed media, his Internet interventions containing projects involving or being based on computer hacks, live streaming, sampling as well as programs such as Google and Friendster.
Michael Bell-Smith is working in very similar means, when addressing subjects such as copyright and re-appropriation of popular culture. Bell-Smith is in his work using the distribution channels of mass communication, thus making an impact outside of the art context. The New York Times was commenting upon his project "In the Closet" (2004), made by layering all the chapters of the R.Kelly music video. Projects also include a hit compilation mixing the original versions of for instance "Survivor", "Thong Song", "No Scrubs" and "Crazy in Love" with their ring tone versions.
Nils Bech is drawing on the romantic terms of the exhibition title. Being a solo singer, detached from any spectacle or artifact, he performs hit covers of the latest ten years, employing a notion of up-to-date nostalgia. Dan Persson has been a central character on the Scandinavian Black and Death Metal scenes, both as a member of several bands and producer on a number of projects. In his new project, electric guitar and vocal are the only elements. The result is deconstructed Metal, without the basic back lines, leaving a closer connection between the performer and the audience.
Ida Ekblad employs Google as an instrument in her artistic practise, her art depending on results of specific image searches. By implicating the aesthetics of the Internet and results being available at the time of the search, the art is produced, the material being customised into sculptures or films. Together with Anders Nordby, she is hosting the website www.computerprincess.com. Benjamin Alexander Huseby comes from another end of image production, being a fashion photographer, working for different well-known magazines such as Vogue and Another Magazine, but also exhibiting as an artist. For the exhibition he is showing a project on the subcultures Scallies and Skinheads.
Lars Laumann draws inspiration from the outskirts of popular culture, using extracts from science and modern mythologies in the form of found texts, images and objects, so by reediting and sampling creating works that can take form as poetry, collages, installations, poster-books or videos. Lina Viste Groenli is concerned with common references and readings, as well as the distortion or rearranging of these. Her work focuses largely on the representation of objects and/or ideologies connected to contemporary lifestyle. In the exhibition she is showing a sculpture which is a box of books, containing a compilation of the artists own personal library.
