Rachel Reupke

Rachel Reupke
1st December - 1st January 2008
tank.tv sees out the year with a solo show from Rachel Reupke.

Showcasing a selection of chapters from her ongoing project of re-examining romantic filmic conventions in the age of mass reproduction, the programme will include previously unseen work.

Inspired by the opening moments of Herzog's Aguirre: Wrath of God, Hitchcock's North By Northwest and the landscapes of Bruegel, Friedrich and Turner, in Reupke's work scenery and vistas are manipulated to the point of hyperreality. "Romanticism is tempered" Reupke says, her moving images, "set within the post-industrial age depict landscapes organised for economic gain and social control, where technological progress, though impressive in scale and ambition, retains an underlying element of threat." Visually beautiful and delicately unsettling her work explores the tensions inherent in the contemporary vista as interpret ed by technologies (both current and historical), industry and inhabitants.


Several recent works will form part of the exhibition. Now Wait for Last Year (2007) is made in response to the rapid developments in the architecture of contemporary Beijing and was made whilst the artist was on an Arts Council fellowship in China. Utilising 21st century techniques of digital manipiulation this work contrasts with the historical nature of the technology used to create Land of Cockaigne (2007). This god's eye view of the Sussex Downs was taken using the camera obscura at Foredown Tower in the village of Portslade. Taking it's cue from early camera obscura entertainments, fictional scenes are staged in the landscape which appear in the footage from this one continuous camera movement.

Other works include Parc Naturel (2003), Untitled No1 and No2 (2006) and Tignes (2005), Reupke's choreographed look at the French ski resort when Summer and neglect conspire to disrupt the views from a selection of 'webcams'. Rachel Reupke was born in Henley-on-Thames in 1971 and studied at Nottingham Trent University and Goldsmiths College, London. She now lives and works in the British capital and recent exhibitions include Land of Cockaigne, Fabrica, Brighton; Beyond the Country, Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork; Vidéo et après, Pompidou Centre, Paris (solo screening) and 24 Hour Fresh Air, L'Espace Croisé, Roubaix.

Rachel Reupke is online at www.tank.tv
from 1st December 2007 - 1st January 2008.

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