Barbora Horská

Velvet Claws-Exhibition Concer(p)t/Zamat

Experimental group Velvet Claws plays in their Exhibition Concer(p)t with the idea of transferring elements of night club environment into the gallery and vice versa.
The objective of the project is thus building a bridge between the institutional gallery ground and the open club scene. The group found their inspiration in musicalisation of artwork and their desire to create a student band as a new experience on the music scene. Their approach with overlapping sound and visual art has the character of a performance. During the concert, the artists use VJ-ing freely to mix visual components and at the same time to react with layering of found musical footages, that have the character of electronic ambient background with elements of interference and sometimes computerised "spoken" word. The students work with a database of components, such as famous scenes from films, popular YouTube videos, speeches on social media and their own original video recordings created during their studies. They are interested in current themes present in our society, which they view from the perspective of the young generation, they react and criticise the extremes of our times (the cult of the body, gender issues, religious bigotry, nationalism...). Key elements of the project include combining, creating random connection and overlapping of visual messages and comments, which create humorous moments full of parody, irony and wit. Connections evoke associations without any enforced moralization. They leave space for the viewer’s own observations and reflections. In the free and playful approach of a music ensemble, they filter their pressure issuing from having to defend their school concepts and assignments, which may result in even greater charge in their performance and their expression. They gradually profile key motives and themes in their database, to which they attach funny and apt text commentaries. They thus create a certain backbone for their performance, communicated in the form of a track list.

TRACK LIST (from performance in Nitra's Gallery, 20.5.2017)
1. Little UFO Men on the Ceiling
2. Fick ihn wie noch keine andere (Fuck Him like No Other)
3. Put Your Make-Up on and Come
4. Spaceships
5. The Earth Quit Singing
6. Journey to St. Comedown
7. Does the Devil Care About Men?

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