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De Humobisten
Humobiza, Video still, 2006, DVD 10 mins
De Humobisten
Humobiza, Video still, 2006, DVD 10 mins
De Humobisten
Humobiza, Video still, 2006, DVD 10 mins
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HuMOBISTEN
live and work in Rotterdam
Forthcoming ,S.T.O.R.A.G.E July/Aug 2007
The HuMobisten, an art and design duo from Rotterdam, have been around
for more then seven years. The HuMobisten are Rufus Ketting and Gyz La
Rivière. They call themselves serious pranksters who make art and
design that is mostly about themselves and the absurd world around them.
Subcultural identity is at the centre of The HuMobist’s (HuMobisten)
work, "HuMobiza". However, here, the live moment is far less
of interest than a subculture’s music and video culture, more specifically,
the music and video culture of Ibiza rave. On the simplest level, the
work is a puerile parody, covering not dissimilar ground to their ‘porn
droid’ video in which the cultures of sci-fi and pornography were
parodied. But if other work is largely occupied with the actual live expressions
of members of a subculture –their living moments- then the HuMobists
are concerned with their residues, the objects they leave behind them.
Relying on the same vein of irreverent, arguably nihilistic, humour of
Bas Jan Ader or Gilbert & George, the HuMobists have constructed a
manipulated artefact of the Ibiza rave culture. They have written a bangin’
dance track and filmed a video, partly, in the milieu drug-influenced
visual language associated with the house refugees who flock to the Balearics.
Or wish they could whilst actually flocking to some deserted warehouse
in Kortrijk, Bournemouth or Bielefeld.
And, perhaps, it is in the ‘partly’ that the most interesting
artistic practice arises. For, just as Bas Jan Ader’s absurd actions
occasionally, maybe almost accidentally, allow us to trace an immediate
lineage to and understanding of the actions of preceding artistic movements,
so too the Humobists arrive at something beyond a mere parody of a visual
culture associated with a recognisable subculture. The nightmarish horse
heads, for example, can be easily understood in terms of the low production
values of music videos created for one-hit-wonder dance bands coming up
with that one track that will make them the toast of a particular summer
on the islands. There is something almost endearing about the way in which
dodgy music video makers have attempted to convey the dance drug experience
with tacky editing effects and cheap carnival props. And perhaps this
is something that the HuMobists recognise; the depths to which humans
will fall in a genuine attempt to communicate their most intense personal
experiences.
But, more importantly, like Bas Jan Ader, perhaps the HuMobists understand
the fundamentally pathetic results driven by a desire to arrive at a profound
expression. This is actually what unites cheap video culture and some
of the lauded art movements of the last century and a half.
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