TERESA COS Selected works

‘Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles, and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line’

- Benoît Mandelbrot, introduction to The Fractal Geometry of Nature -

The human condition.The endless negotiation.The self and the self. The self and the other. The individual and society. Societies and societies.Cultures, beliefs and histories. Timescapes.Chance and intention.The desires of being and the unannounced ends.One and the same.Reading a lot of Rosi Braidotti at the moment.Direct experience.Duration and the moment.Still and moving image.Music and sound.Live(d), shared, combined.In no particular order.The Rhythmanalist reads the world as a symphony.Enough gaps needed be left open.Wonder as much as discomfort.Familiar as much as uncanny feelings. Not afraid of being romantic.The Rebirth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.Particularly concerned with the present state of the European Union at the moment.Not the only one feeling distracted and disengaged at the moment.Refusing labels as an individual, and so as an artist.Embracing complexity, contradiction and perpetual transformation.

A film featuring seven ‘No Evil Monkeys’-symbols of ancient Eastern wisdom as much as of contemporary Western moral disengagement-is projected through a circular mirror, while seven fragments of music for guitar are played to accompany the characters and the audience in their ritual journey of transfiguration. Music and film intertwine into a loose narration of celebrations and ceremonials, leading to war and its transcendence.

Excerpts from recorded studio session:https://vimeo.com/157850499

AUDI, VIDE, TACE (SI VIS VIVERE IN PACE)Live film and music performance, approx. 20 minutes, 2016 (pre-production)

First sketches for the mirror projection. Follows stills from recorded studio session.

Early developments and open reharsals during Van Eyck open studios.

The film was shot in the General Assembly Room of the Province of Limburg’s Government Building, where on the 7th of February 1992 the signing ceremony of the Maastricht Treaty took place.The document is formally known as the Treaty on European Union.

A non-European voice reads the preamble of the Treaty, whilst the lights of the eighteen pointed star ceiling perform a choreography that goes in and out of sync with the soundtrack, as it grows from a quite voice whispering the anthem of Europe, to an orchestra of

sounds birthing the Union. The clock-wise and anti clock-wise movement of the ceiling and the psychedelic tones of the music hold the tension of something that could be simultaneously the memory of a past as well as a vision of the future.

ASTROLOGY OF A FRIDAYVideo, colour, sound, 10’45”, 2016

Documentation photograph from 1992 and stills from video and the work installed.

Online link: https://vimeo.com/156672276Password: Michael Jackson

The appropriation of the famous letter that Sol Lewitt wrote in 1965 to artist and friend Eva Hesse is at the center of this work. In what seems to be a Skype conversation with a distant friend -wearing a t-shirt printed with Lewitt’s hand drawing as it appears on the manuscript- the letter becomes a two way pep talk in the mouth of an online oracle. The screen which printed the t-shirt, the only exisiting copy of which was sent to the performer, is conserved, clearly stating the day and place it was first exposed to light.

AS SOL TO EVAVideo, colour, sound, 7’00”, 2015

A film by Teresa CosWith Mela Boev

Stills from video.

Screen, 58 x 84 cm. Installation view at Jan Van Eyck Academie Open StudiosA copy of the manuscript can be viewd online at this address:http://blog.art21.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sol-eva-letter.pdf

Online link: Password: Michael Jackson

London Bridge is crossed every morning at the same time by thousands of commuters forming a river moving unidirectionally South to North. The scene is iconic and has been impressed many times in the news, films, documentaries, lullabies and poetry. I observed for some time this phenomenon and calculated with rough mathematics the average pace of the commuters, which resulted of 113 BPM. I decided to impersonate this rhythm, walking robotically in the crowd following the beat of a metronome, but developing four movements that engage and disrupt the linear conception of time embodied by the flow. The movements are intended as four different stages of a ritual and are repeated constantly from 8am to 9am.The performance was documented in first person with an unnoticeable video device fixed to my chest and

the entire filmed footage is shown uncut in a two channel life-size video installation. The work is accompanied by a sound piece consisting of the key words of Henri Lefebvre’s ‘Rythmanalysis’, spoken continuosly for one hour at 113 BPM and it includes fragments of music mixed with ambience sounds, as well as references to Steve Reich’s ‘Clapping Music’. The recorded action and soundtrack are phased and only synchronise at the video’s start and end.

EIGHT CHAPTERS IN FOUR MOVEMENTSPerformance transposed into video, colour, sound, 1 00’00”, 2015

Stills from video.

1st movement. Compliance,walking forward with the flow, South end to the middle.

3rd movement. Refusal, walking forward against the flow, North end to the middle.

2nd movement. Awareness, walking backwards with the flow, middle to the North end.

Installation sketch for a single channel life-size video.

3rd movement. Trascendence, walking backwards against the flow, middle to the South end.

Online excerpt: https://vimeo.com/149575171

Performance score.

On the occasion of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale - section Monditalia - I was invited to produce a new work related to a specific place in Italy that could be representative of a socio-political issue at a larger scale. At that time I was already working on the idea of the “infinite” links that spring ahead of us on the internet as a metaphor for all the possible non linear connections through which we can attempt at re-configuring ourselves and society and a voice in my head kept repeating ”All roads lead to Rome…” I asked Wikipedia whether there is such a place in Rome where all the roads would converge, to find that Capitoline Square is the conventionally designated kilometre zero of Italy, but most importantly the place where emblematic events of the Italian and global civil history overlap in space and time. Capitoline Square can no longer be seen as a point of convergence, but rather as a place intercepted by a network of meanings that travel independently and assume different connotations depending on the observer. Short is the journey that leads from Michelangelo’s masterpiece to Grand Rapids, Michigan, where a bad copy dwells; brief is the distance between the oldest public art collection - the Capitoline Museums - and the relatively new concept of Europe, the birth of which was sealed within the very same walls that today protect the original statue of Marcus Aurelius, reproduced on the pages of the Italian passport and engraved in the Euro coin. It is a drift - Richard Wagner and Keith Jarret belonging to the same soundtrack and the Capitoline geese ‘birthing’ the Stock Exchange. I imagined moving through Wikipedia, following a choreography and recording every opened link, every digression, every selected content, thinking of each page as if spread next to another on the floor, a personal journey that keeps together the possibility of all the others.

In the following page a detail screen shot from the digital file.

A short documentation of the work as installed at the 14th Inter-national Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia can be viewed here:https://vimeo.com/98626696

An online version of the work can be experienced at this address:http://www.teresacos.com/000-index.html

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME. YES, BUT WHERE EXACTLY?Ink print on PVC and tracing paper, marking pen on glass, blue tape, 150x250 cm, 2014

All Roads Lead to Rome. Yes, But Where Exactly?Ink print on PVC and tracing paper, marking pen on glass, blue tape, 150x250 cm(detail)

170 original photographs of the busts collection of the Capitoline Museums in Rome overlap each other in an interactive video in-stallation, creating a pyramid of ever adding layers. The viewer’s shadow interferes with the flow, thus becoming by negation part of it, declaring its own right to history, no matter if its presence in time represents less that a fleeting moment.

Interactive video projection, colour, loop, 2014

IF ONLY ONE COULD TURN THE EYES INSIDE IN

Installation view at the 14th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.Stills from video.

Glass reliquary, 1954 “Domus” monograph, Italian passport, 50 cents Italian Euro coins, 30x20x20 cm, 2014

The audience is asked to offer 50 cents of Italian Euro - which are engraved with the image of the Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius standing at the center of Capitoline Square - to cover with time and money an Italian passport - the pages of which present a stylised version of the same subject - and a monograph dedicated to Capitoline Hill, open on a double page showing two close ups of Marcus Aurelius, looking uncannily at each other and at the audience.

The plate says: “50 cents for a wish, Italian Euro only, capisc’? Sure your wish will become real, If you help Aurelius disappear”.

THE LUCKY AURELIUS

Installation view with foldable support structure and detail at the 14th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.

The overture of Richard Wagner’s ‘Rienzi ‘- opera inspired by the popular leader, who in Medieval times took Capito-line Hill in Rome and made it the symbol of people’s revolt against the barons - is mixed and modulated together with the recording of Keith Jarret’s Capitoline Hill concert of 1983, interrupted because of people’s continuos rumor. In the occasion of the 14th Venice Architecture Biennale it was diffused in one of the two dark spaces of the fold-able support structure I designed for the exhibition and an audio speaker was hanging from the ceiling, two meters from the ground, pending like a giant stone.

You can listen to the sound piece at this address:https://soundcloud.com/redeyekey/keith-wagner

KEITH WAGNER / RICHARD JARRET

Installation view at the 14th International Architecture Biennale in Venice.

The tracks soundwaves overlapping.

Sound, stereo, 11’34”, 2014

No More Milk. An Operetta About (dis)Illusion in Four Acts, inside of libretto/ muisc score 148x210 cm

THATCHER is a musical project formed in 2013. Its members, Teresa Cos and Francesca Zanatta, are long time friends, but only started their collaboration after meeting again in the London underground music scene. Both raised and inspired by the ‘No Wave’ movement of the 70s and 80s and the ‘New York Scene’ of the 90s, their music embodies the struggle to find authentic forms of expression. Their performances are often accompanied by a “libretto”, a diagrammatic music score that informs THATCHER’s music and lyrics. Their activity aims at being predominantly live. THATCHER is live, not alive.

2013-

THATCHER

You can listen to a live performance at this address:http://thatchermusic.tumblr.com

Performance with video in collaboration with Noga Inbar.

During a workshop with artist Tacita Dean in Spain, I decided to measure the coastline of Santander’s Bay in order to answer the coastline paradox, “the counterintuitive observation that the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length”; smaller the scale, longer and more precise the length; different Atlases, different coastlines.

I walked for three days from one end of the bay to the other, for 45 km, using the lenght and pace of my steps as a measurement tool and giving myself rules to follow, such as using one roll of film per day and making sure each exposure always contained a portion of sky, sea and coastline.

I later returned the experience into a diagramatic drawing, where existential notes coexist with data of the traveled path and my distance and elevation from the sea level. The film strips impressed the changing proportion between sky, coastline and sea and it is read as the melody of a music composition where the only constant tone is defined by the line of the horizon. A found object - a 1973 football bet chart where the magnetic stripe resembles the silhouette of a coastline and the grid dimension equals the one of the musical staff - endorses the legitimacy of the experience.

IN AN ATTEMPT TO MEASURE A COASTLINEPerformance documentation and music score. Digital vinyl print, three exposed black & white 120 negative film strips, found object, blue tape,130x130 cm, 2013-2015

The work at MOSTYN gallery, Wales.

Details and found object.

For seven months I obsessively recorded with my iPhone the view from the window of each airplane I took to travel back and forth London and Venice, the window seat being the only place I could find some peace, overwhelmed as I was by the realisation that I had become a European nomad. I kept crossing the Alps, every trip disclosing memories, new mountain rifts or enclosed valleys or villages. In the time of a veer the same lake would look different and I was reminded that perspective, after all, is only a human invention.

The work was exhibited as large prints reproducing on the walls the recorded flights and at the center of the room 5 concertinas springing out of a black box, which recalls the mysterious black box investigators look for after plane crashes. They consist of the same photographs composed on the walls; each photograph contains within a circle a portion of a photograph taken on the next flight, which contains within a circle a portion of a photograph belonging to the next flight again, and so on, suggesting the perpetual alternation of departure and destination.

A diagramatic drawing contains personal annotations, the flights data collected online and notions of Zen philosophy of space and time, all kept together by a symbolic ‘enso’, a circle that indicates perpetual becoming. The diagram is a sort of instruction manual, both for the audience and to the artist.

ENSONine digital collages of different sizes, artist book, diagram, 2012

BA2583TUE11SEP12VCE1135UTC+1LGW1240UTC+027SYUPigment print, 213x162 cm

The work installed at Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice and details from Artist book.

Diagram, pigment print, 45 x 45 cm

A life-size photograph of the interior of a British Airways airplane - featuring an homage to Queen Elizabeth’s Jubilee - stands still in its uncanny symmetry, symbolising the stagnation of contemporary European values, cut in between a glorious and loaded past and a gloomy and incertain future. The airplane, once a symbol of progress and possibility, is here ebodied by a tragicomic sense of decadence and disillusion.

The work installed at Galleria Massimodeluca, Venice.

LONG TO REIGN OVER USPigment Print on PVC, 240x300 cm, 2013

TERESA COS

Born in Latisana, Friuli-Venezia-Giulia, Italy. Sun in Cancer, Moon in Scorpio, raising Acquarius.Lives and works in the European Union.

AWARDS, HONOURS, RESIDENCIES

2016, Live Works Performance Act Award Vol.4, finalist 2015, Artist in residence, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL2014, Selected artist, Alexander Tuchacek Workshop, Steirisch Herbst - Festival of New Art, Graz2013, Selected artist, Tacita Dean Workshop, Villa Iris Visual Art Workshop, The Botin Foundation2012, Artist in residence, Dolomiti Contemporanee, DC/Block, Taibon Agordino, IT2011, Bevilacqua la Masa Foundation, 95th Young Artists Award, 1st prize2011, Magenta Foundation - Flash Forward Emerging Photographers, honourable mention2008, Maninfesto: Photography in Friuli Venezia Giulia, Villa Manin Contemporary Art Center,honourable mention SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2016, In Search of...Peripheral Practices, curated by Vincent van Velsen, Jan Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht2016, Jan Van Eyck Academie Open Studios, Maastricht2015, Open 19, curated by Adam Carr, MOSTYN Gallery, Wales 2014, Monditalia at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition of la Biennale di Venezia, directed by Rem Koolhaas2013, Francesco Fabbri Contemporary Art Prize, Villa Brandolini, Pieve di Soligo, Italy2013, Artinternational Istanbul, Halic Congress Center, with Galleria Massimodeluca, Istanbul (solo presentation)2013, Workshop Tacita Dean, Villa Iris, The Botin Foundation, Santander, Spain2013, They Came and They Left and Everything Was the Same, Stella McCartney Milan (solo)2013, An Ode to Paper/(Un)published, Corridors and Stairs Galley, Milan2013, Combat Art Prize, Natural History Museum, Livorno, Italy2013, Enten/Eller (Either/Or), curated by Andrea Bruciati, Galleria Massimodeluca, Venice (solo)2012, The 95th Young Artist Collective Scholars (Teresa Cos, Roberto Fassone, Valerio Nicloai), curated by Stefano Coletto, Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice (solo)2012, Unpublished #4, Le Dictateur Gallery, Milan2012, Ni Dieu Ni Maître, curated by Andrea Bruciati, Galleria Massimodeluca, Venice2012, Abitanti/Abitati, curated by Stefano Coletto, Dolomiti Contemporanee, DC/Block, Taibon Agordino, Italy2012, C_artelibro: il principio delle pagine, University Library, Bologna2012, Personal Effects on Sale, Esprit Nouveau Pavilion, Bologna2011, 95th Young Artists Collective Exhibition, Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice2011, A Royal Wedding, or How to Live Happily Ever After, with Five Eleven Ninety Nine, Photo Ireland Festival, La Catedral Studios, Dublin2010, Uncommon Ground, London College of Communication Galleries, London2009, Le Grand Pari(s), with Studio 08/ B.Secchi-P. Viganò, Cité de l’Architecture, Palaise du Chaillot, Paris2009, La meglio gioventù: ipotesi sul contemporaneo in regione, curated by Andrea Bruciati, Contemporary Art Gallery of the city of Monfalcone, Italy2008, Spazio FVG on the road, Villa Manin Contemporary Art Center, Codroipo, Italy2008, Fruz 02: una nuova generazione di artisti in regione, curated by Andrea Bruciati, Contemporary Art Gallery of the City of Monfalcone, Italy

LIVE PERFORMANCES, SCREENINGS AND PARTICIPATIONS

2016 (upcoming), DRODESERA XXXVI, World Breakers, Centrale Fies, IT 2016 (upcoming), Music Hackspace London, seriese of artist talks curated by Tadeo Sendon2015, Doing Sounding Exchanging Thinking: The Auditory Experience of the Social, symposium curated by thickear, Foundation B.a.d, Rotterdam 2015, THATCHER live at New River Studios, London

2014, Night Contact, slideshow curated by Thurston Moore, Brighton Photo Biennal2014, THATCHER live at Power Lunches, London2014, THATCHER live at Good Job, London2013, E.V.A. (Experimental Video Architecture) Festival, Filmessay Online Festivals2013, THATCHER live at A:JAM:SESSION, 76 Kingsland Road, London2013, Time Machine Magazine “Spectacle” issue slideshow, Belfast Photo Festival, Belfast Town Hall2013, Representation of Architecture. Film on architecture screening sessions, Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodin, curated by Steve Bisson with Ruben Alonso, Novi Sad2013, THATCHER live at Stella McCartney, Milan2012, ON STAGE-I beneandanti, Arte Verona, round table with Lorenzo Bruni, Gianni Pettena and studio ++2011, A Royal Wedding, Or How To Live Happily Ever After, with Five Eleven Ninety Nine collective, BBC Screen, Belfast Photo Festival2010, I Heart Street Photography, with “So Shoot Me” collective, gorilla action on selected public spaces in London + screening at The Book Club, London SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

2014, La Biennale di Venezia - 14th International Architecture Exhibition - Fundamentals, Marsilio Editore2014, Flash Forward Tenth - Celebrating 10 Years of Flash Forward, Magenta Foundation, Toronto2014, Personal Food on Sale, Fortino Editions, Miami, FL2013, Artinternational Istanbul, Exhibition Catalogue2013, Enten-Eller, Teresa Cos, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Massimodeluca, Venice2013, Ni Dieu Ni Maître, exhibition catalogue, Galleria Massimodeluca, Venice2013, Canteen: the state of creation #8, Stephen Pierson Publisher, Brooklin, NY2012, Post-Spazio. Immagini, prospettive e mappe dell’abitare, Mimesis Editore, Milano2012, 96ma Collettiva Giovani e i Borsisti della 65ma Collettiva, Fondazione Bevilacqua la Masa, Venice2012, Through the Spaces Between Moments, Teresa Cos, self published, London2012, San Rocco #5 Scary Architects, indipendently published, Venice2012, Unpublished #4, indipendently published, Milan2012, C_Artelibro. Il principio delle pagine, exhibition catalogue, Danilo Montanari Editore, Ravenna2012, Art Verona, exhibition catalogue, Carlo Cambi Editore, Poggibonsi (Si)2012, Personal Effects On Sale, exhibition catalogue, Danilo Montanari Editore, Ravenna2011, Flash Forward 2011. Emerging photographers from Canada, the United Kingdom an the United States, The Magenta Foundation, Toronto2011, La ville poreuse. Un projet pour le Grand Paris et la métropole de l’après - Kyoto, Bernardo Secchi-Paola Viganò, Ed. Metispresses

PUBLIC COMMISSIONS

2012-2013, Historic Royal Palaces in London2010, University IUAV of Venice and the Veneto Region2008-2009, Le Grand Pari(s), Consultation Internationale pour l’avenir du Paris Métropolitaine, contribution to Studio 08/Bernardo Secchi-Paola Viganò participation SELECTED TEXTS, INTERVIEWS AND FEATURES

All Roads Led to Rome. Fine, And Then What? by Davide Daninos // T-A-X-I - curated by Francesca di Nardo // Pizzadigitale - Interview with Saul Marcadent (ITA) // ATP Diary - Interview, All Roads Lead to Rome. Yes, But Where Exactly? (ITA) // Grey Magazine - Interview, Teresa Cos for Stella McCartney // Pizzadigitale - Interview with Barbara Chloe Asnaghi (ITA) // Mousse Magazine - Teresa Cos at Massimodeluca // Exhibart - Teresa Cos, Enten-Eller, by Riccardo Caldura (ITA)

EDUCATION

2010, MA Documentary Photography & Photojournalism, UAL, London College of Communication 2008, MA Architecture for the City, University IUAV of Venice (Professors Paola Viganò and Bernardo Secchi)2005, BA Architecture, University IUAV of Venice