In his work, dutch video artist Jeroen Kooijmans explores the potential of the seemingly mundane scenario. He presents constructed situations that exist as medians, propositioning the viewer to contemplate a framework in which his work can exist. Cloud Factory (1996), a single channel video projection installation, presents an apparently simple, almost idyllic, urban landscape. Like Kooijmans’ other video works, notably Pilot (1998) and Werk (1996), Cloud Factory can be initially interpreted as a minimalist video gag, the visual equivalent of a one-liner.
At first glance, the subtle manipulation of this piece is almost missed. The upper half of the image is a factory smokestack, with clouds of exhaust billowing overhead. The lower half of the image is the road in front of the factory on which cars pass by intermittently. Closer examination reveals that the bottom half of the scene progresses in real time in forward motion, while the upper half of the scene slowly reverses. The technical accomplishment of Cloud Factory, in its seamless division of the image, reinforces the work’s innate humour and urges the viewer to look more closely. This paradoxical quality has further implications with which the viewer must contend: the utopian reversal of technology, temporal distortion, and the illusion of reality. In Cloud Factory, familiar notions of the everyday are dislodged, fundamental truths are disturbed, and the relationships between cause and effect are easily undermined.
Special thanks to Jan Schuijren at Netherlands Media Art Institute, Montevideo/Time Based Arts.
Artist Bio
Jeroen Kooijmans
Jeroen Kooijmans is a Dutch artist currently residing in New York, where he is participating in the PS1/MoMA New York International Studio Program. He works in different media, but most often realizes his ideas in video. His work has shown internationally and in 1998 he was awarded the NPS Culture Award. In 1999, his works Pilot and Werk were shown at the first Toronto International Video Art Biennial.