koiman II

above: excerpt from Koiman II - Years Without Summers (24 Nocturnes), 2017- (to hear the sound press the sound icon located in the lower right corner of the moving image)

KOIMAN II - YEARS WITHOUT SUMMERS (24 Nocturnes)

2017-

cycle of sound compositions and 4K film projections

duration (part I): 19 minutes 36 seconds, limited edition, 3 + 2 AP

series of film stills, dimensions variable, limited edition, 3 + 2 AP

above: excerpt from Koiman II - Years Without Summers (24 Nocturnes), 2017- . Movement performer: Monika Weiss. Sound composed by Monika Weiss with participation of vocalists Maksymilian Bielecki and Keith Wehmaier. Piano: Monika Weiss

below: selected limited edition film stills

Credits

directed, recorded, written, sound composed, choreographed, performed, filmed and edited by Monika Weiss

piano: Monika Weiss

movement performance: Monika Weiss

voices: Maksymilian Bielecki (tenor) and Keith Wehmaier (countertenor)

poem: Gute Nacht by Wilhelm Müller, part of Winterreise, 24 poems set to music by Franz Schubert (1828)

sound was developed during the artist’s residency at Harvestworks Digital Media Arts Center, New York, special thanks to Matthew Ostrowski

sound was mastered at Experimental Media Arts, University of Arkansas, special thanks to Adam Hogan

Artist Statement

Following the eruption of volcano in Tambora, Indonesia in 1815, the spreading ash cloud cooled global temperatures by reflecting and scattering sunlight and impacted weather patterns around the world, causing agricultural disaster, famine and migration. The 1816 was later named “a year without summer”. The accounts by travelers who were at sea following the Tambora explosion, describe darkness occurring during the day, making it impossible “to see your hand outstretched.” Two hundred years later the world appears to me as if shrouded in a symbolic ash cloud resulting from the global climate change, the collapse of Arab Spring, the current refugee crisis and the gradual and global move towards fascist ideologies.

My project Koiman II is also inspired by Winterreise (Winter Journey), a cycle of 24 songs for voice and piano composed in 1828 by the German Romantic composer Franz Schubert. Koiman II is a cycle of 24 short films and sound compositions, Nocturnes. In each Nocturne, I am seen standing or kneeling against wintery landscapes, frozen lakes, abandoned cemeteries, or desolate urban landscapes. In some of the Nocturnes, I am lying down and moving gently atop the surface of a grand piano that my mother used to play on, or pages from Schubert’s Winterreise . In most of the films, I am facing away from the camera, almost motionless and dressed in a long black robe, I perform slow, minimal and silent gestures of lamentation, as if suspended outside of time.

I have filmed the scenes during my artist residencies at YADDO, Saratoga Springs and BRIC, Brooklyn, as well as in other locations including Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw and the rooftop of my friend Dina Helal, who passed in 2018. My drawings in the same cycle appear montaged within the films, connoting frozen surfaces and layers of emotions. Sound is composed from my recordings of wind and snow, and of the voices of tenor vocalist Maksymilian Bielecki (my mother’s former piano student) and countertenor vocalist Keith Wehmaier. The project is meant to evoke the notion of darkness, eruption, explosion, coldness and clouding, and is greatly affected by global conditions—such as displacement, violation and exploitation of bodies of others—which mirror the abuse and gradual disintegration of the natural environment resulting from colonial agendas.

Koiman II is dedicated to my late mother, pianist Gabriela Weiss and to current refugees and migrants around the world.

- Monika Weiss

Essay Excerpt

Koiman II – Years Without Summers (24 Nocturnes), 2017-, a deeply personal and political work, comprises twenty-four film projections, an equal number of sound compositions and large charcoal and graphite drawings. The subtitle derives from the 1815 volcanic explosion in present day Indonesia that affected the global environment leading to what was described as “a year without summer” (in 1816). The ensuing darkness in parts of the world caused by volcanic ash was described by those who witnessed it, and is compared by Weiss to the darkness that envelops our world: refugee crises, climate change and the rise of blinkered nationalist ideologies. In the film, set against desolate and dark landscapes and sites of abandonment, the protagonist gestures and moves silently.

The drawings that evoke the explosion appear momentarily superimposed on the figure creating a suggestive union. Whereas the drawings were conceived as independent works, their relation to the film enriches their autonomy. Graphically they resist, their media (graphite powder and archival glue) links directly to the historic past while evoking the notion that through the obscurity of ash, our culture cannot perceive its own future.

- Mark McDonald, curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Drawing Consiousness: Monika Weiss in Monika Weiss-Nirbhaya, Centre of Polish Sculpture in Orońsko, 2021 (to read full text click here)