Tris Vonna-Michell

Registers

* 1982 in Southend-on-Sea, GBR, lives and works in Stockholm, SWE
studied at the Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, GBR, and Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main, GER

Japan, Tokyo 2008, a journey. Tris Vonna-Michell returns after seven years. Back to a city in which he lived on the streets for five weeks. Registers deals with a story from the artist’s life. A story about his time in Japan, presented as a monologue, visually as a slide show, musically accompanied by a montage of compositions by Jan Matthé, Field Recordings, and guided by the voice of the artist.
In the documentary rendition of his experiential world, the artist engages with existential experiences related to the self. Contrasting the text and resembling a hologram, the motifs float on the screen. The mosaic-like narration has no overarching structure. The scenes mostly represent unconnected episodes and thus stand for themselves.
The slides are projected from the rear through translucent foils, superimposed by moving water surfaces, and in changing sequences, showing his trip, all the places where one stops, lingers, and sets off again, between chaos and noise—marble and fittings and water fountains, airports or restrooms. A unique visual universe emerges. The events are linked through a sequential construction principle. The viewers are thus prompted to look at the loosely affiliated details together.
Registers is a work that transports the artist’s intimate impressions and enchants the viewers with its visual and rhetorical charm. The grand model of a long-term observation is reflected through the lens of a micro-perspective.

Ivon Valchanova