Jonas Englert
Circles I, 2019
7-channel video installation, found footage, 4:3, mute
260 x 47 x 43.5 cm
102 3/8 x 18 1/2 x 17 1/8 in
102 3/8 x 18 1/2 x 17 1/8 in
Edition of 7 plus 2 artist's proofs
Courtesy of the artist & Galerie Anita Beckers, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
To make 'Circles I' (2019), Jonas Englert searched global archives for instances of skin-to-skin contact between political figures. The result is a 7-channel video installation, featuring found footage of politicians...
To make "Circles I" (2019), Jonas Englert searched global archives for instances of skin-to-skin contact between political figures. The result is a 7-channel video installation, featuring found footage of politicians shaking hands and embracing.
The video collage dismantles documentary scenes of political encounters against the background of the events of both world wars and beyond into a rhizome of interpersonal contact, choreographs a round dance of multiple circles of touch, that interplay with one another.
Both "Circles I" and "Circles II" follow a specific formal structure. While in "Circles I" and "Circles II" the seven circles [1-7] are for themselves closed — the last human to be touched is the one, who gets in contact with the first again like in a round dance — the circles also correspond with each other. Every circle is connected with the previous as well as with the next. E.g.: through Charles de Gaulle and Dwight D. Eisenhower circle 1/7 is connected with circle 7/7 as well as with circle 2/7, as indicated in the diagram of "Circles II" as the overlapping font of a doubled name or in the moving images of "Circles I" as temporal parallelisms. Although the number of bodily contacts in each circle differ from 8 to 13, each circle in "Circles I" maintains a duration of five minutes until the circle closes and the loop repeats. Other than in "Circles II", where the circles grow as they contain more contacts.
The video collage dismantles documentary scenes of political encounters against the background of the events of both world wars and beyond into a rhizome of interpersonal contact, choreographs a round dance of multiple circles of touch, that interplay with one another.
Both "Circles I" and "Circles II" follow a specific formal structure. While in "Circles I" and "Circles II" the seven circles [1-7] are for themselves closed — the last human to be touched is the one, who gets in contact with the first again like in a round dance — the circles also correspond with each other. Every circle is connected with the previous as well as with the next. E.g.: through Charles de Gaulle and Dwight D. Eisenhower circle 1/7 is connected with circle 7/7 as well as with circle 2/7, as indicated in the diagram of "Circles II" as the overlapping font of a doubled name or in the moving images of "Circles I" as temporal parallelisms. Although the number of bodily contacts in each circle differ from 8 to 13, each circle in "Circles I" maintains a duration of five minutes until the circle closes and the loop repeats. Other than in "Circles II", where the circles grow as they contain more contacts.