Haarlem/Akureyri
Todd Matsumoto headed the Dutch portion of the project. He created the NEW REMOTE LIVING SPACE in the Nieuwe Vide Gallery in Haarlem, a futuristic living environment equipped with phone, fax, video, TV and internet facilities, a kitchen area, and a bedroom designed to maximize comfort.
Matsumoto invited artists, writers and spectators into the NEW REMOTE LIVING SPACEto collaborate in brainstorming ideas and creating story lines. He offered drinks, food and a place to spend the night, if so desired. Matsumoto and company wrote scenarios inspired by discussions, books, films, and the environment of working/living at the NEW REMOTE LIVING SPACE. In conclusion to each day, one piece of writing was faxed to the awaiting film crew in Iceland. This was repeated for five consecutive days.
In Iceland Barry Camps, Camilla Singh, Steini Tórsson and Walter Willems set up a work space in the Ketilhús Gallery in Akureyri. Sponsored by local merchants and musicians, the gallery underwent a rapid metamorphosis, becoming a functioning studio equipped with the necessary tools to shoot and edit videos, play and record music, and eventually set up an exhibition. When the first fax arrived from the NEW REMOTE LIVING SPACE in Holland, they were primed and ready.
After receiving each fax, the group met and discussed how to proceed. They invited [local] artists and tourists to take part in the project. Following five days of shooting visual interpretations of the faxed "stories", the video footage was edited and sent back to Haarlem, to be screened in its point of origin.
The Iceland group then transformed the Ketilhús into an exhibition space, creating a space which referred to the subject matter of the original faxes and their interpretation. The final state of the gallery as a work space, was used as a starting point towards the culmination into an exhibition. All furniture and instruments used in creating the project were covered with white hospital sheets. The floor was then covered with black sand, indigenous to Iceland. Another room, created within the existing space, was named the Transformation Room, with direct reference to the faxed writings from Holland. The original faxes became a glowing sculptural element within the installation, presented as floating scrolls in a pitch-dark room lit with black light. The videos were shown on a large screen TV in the centre of the exhibition space. When the show opened, it was indicated that people should enter without socks or shoes.
NEW REMOTE continues as an ongoing project with collaborative efforts among groups of artists producing interpretive preconceived and interdependent relationships. With this first project, the New Remote has managed to successfully combine different media with existing technologies, establishing contemporary art shows simultaneously from different points on a new world map.