An exhibition by Silvia Maglioni & Graeme Thomson

Opening hours:
Wed/Fri: 16:00h - 18:30h
Thu: 16:00h - 20:00h
Sat: 15:00h - 17:00h

(See English text below.)

L’exposition se constitue à partir d’un assemblage de fragments dispersés d’un film « naufragé » (épreuves de tournage, images, sons, textes, éléments du décor et de la recherche) installés dans l’espace de Corner College. Tourné pendant une traversée de l’Atlantique sur un paquebot de Lisbonne à Sao Paolo sur des variations du roman L’Amérique de Franz Kafka, le film explore des états d’épuisement et d’effondrement sur le fond de la crise financière, dont les effets sont cachés et différés par un régime de divertissement et de consommation forcés. Pour l’exposition Shipwreck Study Notes, l’ambiance sonore dans l’espace et l’installation de certains éléments seront activées et modifiées par des micro-interventions orchestrées par les artistes pendant leur séjour à Zurich. Ces micro-interventions seront improvisées, avec la complicité du public, selon une série de suggestions mi-aléatoires (Study Notes), une performance et une action collective musicale (musicking). L’objectif est de transformer l’espace en un lieu de vie, de réflexion, de soin et de mise en accord de longueurs d’ondes fluctuantes et imprévisibles.

Commissariat: Dimitrina Sevova

Nous tenons à remercier l'Ambassade de France en Suisse de son soutien.

(Texte en français ci-dessus.)

What Rises From the Depths Cannot Help But Break the Surface is a modular installation of variable dimensions that reconfigures material related to the film Disappear One (2015) in an open, experimental environment.

The exhibition constitutes itself on the basis of an assemblage of dispersed fragments of a "shipwrecked" film (rushes, images, sounds, texts, elements of the props and research) installed in the space of Corner College. Shot during a transatlantic cruise from Lisbon to Sao Paolo on an ocean liner over variations of Franz Kafka's novel America, the film explores states of exhaustion and collapse on the backdrop of the financial crisis, whose effects are hidden lag in time due to a regime of compulsory entertainment and consumption. For the exhibition Shipwreck Study Notes, the sound environment and the installation of certain elements will be activated and modified by micro-interventions orchestrated by the artists during their stay in Zurich. These micro-interventions will be improvised, with the complicity of the audience, following a series of semi-random suggestions (Study Notes), a performance and a collective musical action (musicking). The aim is to transform the space into a place of life, reflection, care and tuning of fluctuating and unpredictable wave lengths.

The conception of different installation modules of Disappear One marks the continuation of Silvia Maglioni and Graeme Thomson’s research into the possibilities of ‘exploded’ or dispersed forms of cinema, moving on from the various exhibitions and installations they have created with and around several films: Wolkengestalt (2007-2015), Facs of Life (2009-2015) and In Search of UIQ (2011-2015).

For the artists, the installation of a film necessary involves a formal and material mutation, a process of virtualization that reverses the actualized film into the problematic field of its making, and, one could also say, of its unmaking or undoing. This also implies a redistribution of time. Spatial montage allows this transformation of the interstitial spaces between elements into cracks in time, letting in a draught of ‘elsewhere wind’ that may loosen the viewer’s hold on their own time.

The topos of the shipwreck is a condition which envelops and permeates the filmic material, the Atlantic crossing the artists made with the UEINZZ Theatre Company and other fellow travellers, Kafka’s novel (already an abandoned fragment of a dispersed oeuvre) and the exhibition form itself - which at the formal level consists of redistributed visual, aural and textual flotsam that breaks the surface in a different configuration of elements each time the work is displayed.

Curated by Dimitrina Sevova



This exhibition is kindly supported by the French Embassy in Switzerland.


This dual film/installation project was selected and supported by the patronage committee of FNAGP (Fondation Nationale des Arts Graphiques et Plastiques). The film Disappear One was co-produced by Spectre, Le Fresnoy Studio National d'Arts Contemporains and Terminal Beach.