For the fifth consecutive year, BMW and Frieze continue their long-term partnership with the major art initiative BMW Open Work by Frieze. Drawing inspiration from BMW engineering the project brings together art, technology and design in pioneering multi-platform formats.
The artist selected by curator Attilia Fattori Franchini to create the latest edition of BMW Open Work by Frieze is the Los Angeles-based Madeline Hollander, who introduced the commission through an interactive digital platform and livery intervention on BMW i3 electric vehicles during Frieze Week 2020, and will present a live, site-specific installation in the BMW Lounge at Frieze London in 2021. As in previous years, BMW will also provide the VIP shuttle service transporting the fair’s VIP guests with the new all electric BMW iX.
On the occasion of Frieze London, the installation will be shown publicly from October 13 to 16 daily between 3:00 and 7:00pm at Park Village Studios.
Working with performance, film and installation, Hollander explores how the human body in motion negotiates its limits within everyday systems of technology and engineering, industrial apparatus, intellectual property and daily rituals. Her performances and installations present perpetually looping events that intervene within spatial, psychological and temporal landscapes, and engage with novel modes of viewership. Titled “Sunrise/Sunset” the project continues the artist’s recent research into traffic patterns and working without human actors to depict unseen systems or processes. Emerging from an inspiring dialogue with the department responsible for sustainability at BMW Group and investigation into the automatic adaptive system of BMW headlights, Hollander created for Frieze London 2021, a site-specific, and self-sufficient, live installation composed of one hundred recycled BMW LED headlights from the BMW Group Recycling and Dismantling Centre. Thus, the artist developed an energetic loop, a networked map choreographed by the sunsets and sunrises across the globe. Fascinated by the responsive nature of headlights technology which reacts to a number of factors such as movement, light and weather conditions, the artist synced each headlight to different time zones creating a live and ceaseless global clock. In Hollander’s work our apparently erratic individual actions and everyday technologies synchronically align, becoming a collective, and in this case cascading-dance. The installation is accompanied by an original score created for the occasion by the composer Celia Hollander.
In addition to Madeline Hollander’s commission for BMW Open Work by Frieze, Superblue and BMW i will present the world premiere of “No One is an Island”, a collaboration between Random International and Studio Wayne McGregor. “No One is an Island” is fueled by science and explores electrified movement steered by advanced algorithms. It is a future-oriented reflection on how the human mind empathizes with artificial intelligence and automated processes. The performance comprises sculptural, performative, and musical aspects.
The centerpiece is a sculpture by Random International that experiments with the minimal amount of information that is actually necessary for an animated form to be recognized as human; and the fundamental impact created by subtle changes within that information. As it transitions from robot to human likeness, dancers from Company Wayne McGregor interact with the sculpture in a live, kinetic performance, further exploring the relationship between humans and technology and our capacity to empathize with a machine. The dancer’s interventions scored by Chihei Hatakeyama add a performative dimension to the sculpture, re-translating and celebrating the connection between human and mechanical movement.
