mikehansen

[mikehansen]

All my works can be seen at:

www.mikehansenart.com

[mikehansen]

Hoi Polloi 2006 (participtory installation) from Mike Hansen on Vimeo.

An encounter based installation that deflates the notion of celebrity by giving star power to the masses.

“Hoi Polloi” offers The Red Carpet as your invitation to celebrity. “Hoi Polloi” is inspired by the concern to give ‘everyone a chance’ When you walk “Hoi Polloi’s” red carpet you are greeted by the undulating screams of your fans and the undying devotion of the paparazzi, as they swoon for your attention. Screams of love and hysteria follow your every step. The paparazzi try to get your attention as they to scoop one another in vain attempts to catch a glimpse of your image. Camera flashes blind you as you walk the red carpet. You become the focus of their attention, even for just a moment.

The red carpet is an important element in the cult of celebrity. It is a make or break situation when it comes to recognition. It is important to remember that it is not a red carpet but “The Red Carpet”.

“Hoi Polloi” gives celebrity to the masses. It takes The Red Carpet out of segregation and offers its values to all. Hoi Polloi demystifies the cult by giving us permission to go through the motions, and thereby frames a critique of the cult of celebrity.

The stars are being fawned over by an ever-growing fan(sination), and the ever-willing paparazzi document their every breath. “Hoi Polloi” feeds you these same sensations. As you enter The Red Carpet, surrounded by stanchions and velvet ropes, you are greeted by a pre-recorded loop, which is triggered by a motion sensor. The pre-recorded loop consists of screaming fans, the clicking of many cameras, and individual screams of desire. The paparazzi demanding that you look their way, (“Here! Here! Over here!), fans clamour for your autograph, scream their love and adoration while demanding to know “Who are you wearing?” The motion detector also cues a series of camera like flashes, fulfilling the cultural paradigm of the red carpet relationship. Lending a sense of drama as you encounter this devotion.

“Hoi Polloi” does not intend to fool or trick the spectator. In its construction all is revealed, the scaffolding is not hidden. The red carpet presentations we witness are an illusion, in that we never see it in the flesh. It is all ways in images reported to us through magazines or broadcast over television. It is masked, all reality is hidden, there are no wires, and workman, the human side is disguised. A draping that is their hegemonic culture. The red carpet we experience is almost always a simulation. “He participates suddenly in the creation of a reality that was just presented to him in dots: the television watcher is in a position of an individual who is asked to project his own fantasies on inkblots that are not supposed to represent anything. TV as perpetual Rorschach test.” (Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation)

“Hoi Polloi” is the real, rooted in its space through the site of its process, (transparent) with nothing is hidden. Hoi Polloi has created an illusion without an illusion, by revealing the construction of the illusion. It is like seeing up the sleeve of the magician as he creates his magic. You can see its labour, the material of the forces at play.

“Hoi Polloi” represents democratization, closing the distance between by removing celebrity from celebrity, as “with video, the difference between the actor and the passer-by tends to diminish. It represents the same development in relation to the film camera as that announced by the invention of paint in tubes in the impressionist generation.” (Nicolas Bourriaud, Relational Aesthetics).

“Hoi Polloi” enables both the extravert and the apprehension in the spectator to rise forth. A charge of excitement fills the interaction as you enter the field of encounter a priori that we are culturally familiar with. An opportunity to enlist into the realm of the Other, crossing the boundaries set up by the hierarchy to retain your place in the cultural matrix. The spectator becomes an image within the image. There is no divine right authority to force the apprehensive viewer, to participate. You can walk on by.

“Hoi Polloi” constructs a model of sociability suitable for producing human relations and exploring the arcane mysteries of interaction. Hansen’s installation encourages the beholder to take up a position within the arrangement, giving it life, completing the work, and taking part in the formation of its meaning.

[mikehansen]

Paradox 1 concrete disc from Mike Hansen on Vimeo.

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Remix

My works are based on sound, noise and music. The artworks I create translate and incorporate sounds through interactive installations, sculptures, photographs and paintings. My latest series of paintings play with ideas around the remix.

remix

verb |rēˈmiks, ˈrē-| [ with obj. ]

mix (something) again.

• produce a different version of (a musical recording) by altering the balance of the separate tracks.

 In the popular lexicon the remix is another rendition of a song typically produced by another hand or ear. Remix re-imagines my previous series of paintings Sound Paintings (found below). Sound Paintings examines music and sound through a synesthetic eye. The paintings use poured paint colour and gesture to demonstrate a visual expression of music that narrates the painting.

Remix takes those ideas and presents them into a new image. The remix series retains the original context, colour and the music expressed in the original paintings. Similar to a record producer or DJ invited remix a song I have played this role in the restructure of the Sound Paintings context.  Wikipedia’s explanation of remix describes the act as greater than just the idea of song/music,

A remix is a piece of media, which has been altered from its original state by adding, removing, and/or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, books, video, or photograph can all be remixes. The only characteristic of a remix is that it appropriates and changes other materials to create something new.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remix

Remix uses a simplified vernacular with extensive negative spaces to act as silence. Silence can be seen as the enemy of music and media. John Cage, the 20th century’s greatest proponent of silence, realized silence as a space of information so it is non-existent.

“There is no such thing as an empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear.”, John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings

Colour and gesture represent my response to the sounds I’m hearing as I work on a painting. Each work revolves around a specific piece of music most of music is experimental, jazz or classically themed. The Sound Painting series of works started with my first listening of Max Richter’s recomposed variations of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. I have a fascination with experimentation in musical forms especially the act of improvisation. I find the restructuring of the form to add an exciting dimension to what was now becoming what can be. This is reflected in the Remix series of paintings.  

[mikehansen]

Sleep  2018  36″x 36″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Dj Olive’s Sleep

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clYxMLOu8Kk

[mikehansen]

Sight  2018  36″x 48″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by MIMEO’s LP Sight

[mikehansen]

Place-Replace-Represent  2018   24″x 24″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Polwechsel and John Tilbury LP, Field

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4rR5GCLk70

[mikehansen]

Through the Hill  2018 48″x 60″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Andy Partridge and Harold Budd’s Through the Hill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ_CSrKTNn4

[mikehansen]

The Duck and The Butcher  2018  48″x 60″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Tyondai Braxton’s LP Central Market

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yba5bSn_Tis

[mikehansen]

I'm Happy, and I'm Singing and A 1,2,3,4  2018  48″x 60″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Jim O’Rourke’s, I'm Happy, And I'm Singing And A 1, 2, 3, 4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yba5bSn_Tis

[mikehansen]

Chitchat, 2018, 48″x 60″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Aki Onda and Alan Licht’s LP, Everyday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yba5bSn_Tis

[mikehansen]

Partita  2018  20″x 20″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Ken Vandermark’s Steam Giraffe from Mark the Water

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzEtqaAfFBU&index=3&list=PLebC6X6zKTnvIyiaJCuAuJZz7RAe5A4zT

[mikehansen]

Vivace 2018  20″x 20″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Sonic Youth + I.C.P. + Ex- In the Fish Tank 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2red7d9o2Q

[mikehansen]

Organum remix  2018  20″x 20″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Philip Jecks ...Bend the Knee, pt 1 from the release Cardinal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHCSRU52-Ho

[mikehansen]

Trees Only Exist in Books remix 2018  20″x 24: acrylic on canvas

inspired by Hauschka’s What If -Trees Only Exist in Books

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WNxdZh8WtM

[mikehansen]

La Lacome De Lacan remix  2018  20″x 24″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Francesco Cusa "Skrunch" Jacques Lacan: A True Musical Story

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikvXRocIrF0

[mikehansen]

Git Cut Noise remix  2018  20″x 24″ acrylic on canvas

inspired by Radian’s Git Cut Noise- Chimera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ax-_QABGuI