Unforbidden pleasures by Enes Guc and Evelyn Bencicova
commisioned project for Barbara Thumm Gallery, curated by Philipp Bollmann

The motionless figure of an androgynous giantess occupies almost the entire gallery space in her entangled posture. On its body and around it, small scaffolding grows upwards. But the construction site is deserted. Only the figure, which resembles an avatar, remains in a calm state. A state of "being in between". Between day and night. Between dream and reality or even between life and death? It almost seems as if the figure is still being brought back to life. 
One is inclined to think of Mary Shelley, whose novel character Victor Frankenstein created an artificial human being 200 years ago - in a time of great upheaval and discovery. Today we find ourselves once again at a turning point in society and technology, which makes us question ourselves as well as platforms on which we construct our selfs.. Is that what Evelyn Bencicova and Enes Güç are alluding to here?
Or are they even illustrating a creation of the „Self-image“?The presentation for the sake of external perception has advanced to a mania that was only enabled by the possibilities of the digital media. We use our extended abilities to make ourselves appear different, often larger than we presumably are. The oversize of the figure is a testament to this. Yet the smaller-scaled scaffolding becomes a metaphor for the process of construction, work in progress. How will it develop? To what extent can it grow?
These questions cannot be answered. Like the figure itself, we as recipients also remain in an intermediate stage. Somewhere between fiction and reality, the visible and the invisible, between what we think to know and what we can imagine.

Work in Progress

(Un)forbidden pleasures by Enes Guc and Evelyn Bencicova
commisioned project for Dance Prague

Directed and scanned before the outbreak of Covid-19 we wanted to capture the power of dance, human interaction and connection. All post-production, in the case modelling the 3D, happened during the lockdown, when we already knew that the festival we created the work for, is not going to unfold in planned range.
Suddenly the context of the visual, or rather of this entire topic changed so radically! We realised that this feeling of closeness can be recreated only digitally, what was our initial intention anyway but suddenly the choice transformed to be the only way, an obligation. At the same time, it opened many questions for us:
How is the image of unprotected touch seen during the pandemic? Is it inappropriate to show close physical contact that is to a large extend forbidden these days? Is it enough that we connect digitally? And can these virtual bodies or selfs replace for uncertain period real tactile sensations? Will the time of isolation influence our view on intimacy? What are the effects and after-effects of what we are going through in art and in everyday life?

Add

Natalia Evelyn Bencicova