Kenmerkend
voor de werkwijze van Hanneke van Velzen is de afstandelijke, bijna wetenschappelijke
benadering van een onderwerp. Fotografie is voor haar primair een instrument
ter registratie van de ons omringende werkelijkheid. Door deze objectieve
weergave komen vaak aspecten naar voren die normaalgesproken onderbelicht
blijven, zoals in dit geval de rijkdom aan kleuren en onverwachte vormen.
Daarnaast krijgt het publiek door deze aanpak tevens de ruimte voor een
persoonlijke interpretatie.
Na
haar opleiding aan de St.Joost Academie te Breda studeerde Hanneke van
Velzen fotografie aan het Rochester Institute of Technology in de Verenigde
Staten. Zij exposeerde haar werk ondermeer in solotentoonstellingen tijdens
Foto Festival Naarden (2003) en in de Eyewash Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(1999), en in diverse groepstentoonstellingen in binnen- en buitenland.
Hanneke van Velzen verdeelt haar tijd tussen New York en Den Haag.
The meaning of the popular interest in DNA fascinates me. Is it the age-old quest of wanting to know who and what we are? In our culture, is DNA what the gods were in older civilizations or what the soul is in a religious context? Is modifying genes and its other components born out of a desire to control life (nature) and thus death, which is what living beings have tried to do since the beginning of time in various ways? Next to these questions, I am just curious to find out what is what within that ‘world’ of research. What is really possible, what is not? What is myth and what is fact? And how does this DNA research relate to our daily life and societal issues? In short, it is the perfect subject to satisfy my fascination with the interaction of cultural and natural phenomena. Naturally, scientific documentation is appropriate in this project, be it through photographic imagery or enigmatic computer analysis and whiteboard computations. All are maps of ‘life’ in one fashion or another.
By no means do I set out to answer these questions. They are just the mindset with which I went out to photograph and find images. I visited molecular biology and medical laboratories, which use gene related research as the backbone to their work. Their curious looking machines, all looking at or dealing with hidden worlds, intrigue me. I visited the Broad Institute where scientists are working on ‘The Genome Project’, which has mapped and sequenced the human genome. Now they are doing the same with the mouse genome. That information will be compared to the human genome in order to find out what the scientist are really looking at. So far an enormous amount of information has been accumulated, much of which they don’t know what it means or that it could actually be of use to us. I videotaped their state of the art robots that do the repetitive work and I photographed their whiteboard theoretical drawings, the endless amounts of specimen trays with barcodes, the computer calculations and the logistical maps that organize the information. All of these are artificial tools to categorize, codify and create order in the complexity of nature/life.
Next to this inanimate subject matter, I have also photographed and filmed human subjects. In the series ‘Moms’ the close up images of seven pregnant belly buttons represent both the universal “navel of the world” and the more mundane umbilical connection to life. It is shown in conjunction with the series ‘Baby Belly Buttons’. DNA research tells us that all people of European descent are the offspring of seven women. In addition I made a super 8 film of the pregnant torso of an African American teenage girl, since we all originate from an ‘Eve’ in Africa, and yet today this girl is one of the most disadvantaged in our society. Other series depict anonymous penis tops representing the y-chromosomes, historical humanoid skulls through the ages at the Galeries de Paléontologie et d’Anatomie comparée at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris; crowds of people in rally’s and at Times Square, focusing in on one or two persons among the many. I intend to add to this a series of images about a religious or shamanic experience.
All the images are organized per series in files in the computer. The titles of the images are based on visual references so I recognize which image is which and to which series it belongs. Then I print them all out in small icons in alphabetical order of the titles, rather than per series. Thus one cataloging system of images is replaced by another logical order. The result is an apparently random and chaotic assortment of images displayed in three long strands. In my mind’s eye this accumulation looks a lot like the visualizations of DNA strands and the genetic code system as I saw it at the Broad Institute. From this collection crucial images are shown large, very much like billboards or illuminated advertising at Times Square. In general, Times Square is a good metaphor for this work, visually and conceptually. The stream of people on the street moves like it has a life and logic of its own. It is comparable to strands of DNA, our genetic code, which I visualize with the bands of small iconic images. Yet, those people come from all corners of the globe and when looked at more closely, are not more than a random collection of unique living entities, which happen to share the same DNA. Similarly the images are very different, appear to be random but share a common concept and source. The ‘billboards’ are illustrations of and commentary on this life happening on the street below.
All
these different aspects, patterns, worlds and series add up to an overwhelming
amount of information, yet not much is clarified. It is similar to scientific
research, which accumulates a lot of data in order to explain an unknown.
But an absolute truth still eludes us. The quest of humankind to find
out what and who we are will go indefinitely with no final answers. Thus
we keep searching and accumulating data and theories and images. I bring
these patterns, components, worlds and series together in an exhibition,
in a collection box (see in back of portfolio), in a high definition video
of repetitive sequencing robot next to super 8 film of pregnant African
American torso and in a still to be produced video/animation where they
will interact viscerally.
Hanneke
van Velzen gaf een presentatie over haar werk tijdens kloone4000.
