Random Chronicles

About

Random Chronicles is an oxymoron. ‚Chronicle‘ derives from the Greek chrónos, meaning time, and chronicles are usually historical records or accounts that follow chronological time. A randomisation of time is therefore a contradiction in terms, an upsetting of a particular sequence or order of things.
Raphael Vella and Bettina Hutschek, the two artists in this exhibition, present drawings and videos which gather their material from a variety of traditional chronicles – old films, books, online archives – and randomly mix them anew. The source materials permit ‚old‘ information to acquire a new sense of relevance. Recent or unfolding events are re-interpreted through a layering of old and new lenses, combining historical or scientific fact with the fluidity of fiction and artificial intelligence.
Raphael Vella’s collages and animated video borrow their imagery from sources as varied as medicine, anatomy, politics and parliamentary architecture. In his collages, simplified floor plans of parliament buildings are superimposed by anatomical, microscopic and other fragments lifted from medical textbooks. In the video Bitterbetter (2023), the artist illustrates a strange exchange with the AI system ChatGPT, in which he asks whether politicians have used medical metaphors during public speeches. An initial reply by ChatGPT related to Angela Merkel and the ‚bitter‘ situation of migrants in Europe is soon followed by an apology: the information given previously is incorrect. What supposedly happened in historical time actually never happened, and the story of this weird exchange is told in a quick succession of stop motion drawings, medical imagery, texts…and disappearing migrants.
Bettina Hutschek‘s video The case OGAMI presents a fictitious UFO-logical case report about three so-called „entities“, who manifest on earth in the shape of human beings. After the discovery of TV-imagery, the new aliens get absorbed into the imaginary of sexual and violent symbolism and repeat it. A voice-over analyses movements and actions of the three humanoid being in pseudo-scientific language. The story is told with archive footage from the 50s, ranging from atomic bomb tests to educational films. The entities and their communicative development up to the „human trap“ turn into an ironic metaphor for humankind.
Her series Typewritings combines typings, drawings and collages. Not sure what they mean.