Cheer Up Fellows 2008
Collaboration with Tine Melzer and Philippe van Wolputte
CHEER UP FELLOWS, a collaborative project between Tudor Bratu, Tine Melzer and Philippe Van Wolputte, originates out of a mutual interest in image and language as independent media, usually employed inside the context of social or historical investigations with a general focus on contemporary culture and society. The shared fascination for structure and systems, with an emphasis on the idea of unity between meaning and form, lead to the work as a genuine interaction which is conceived and carried out inside a particular space – be it a public - or a mental space. Bratu, Melzer and Van Wolputte chose to collaborate in a site-specific work for a building that is currently under construction.
During the working process, they understood the available building as ‘an empty sheet’, upon which they then generated an installation consisting of text and quotes, photocopy material, silkscreen print, slide projections and audio as echoes of the relevant subjects: reproduction, and reproduction of meaning, story telling and re-telling the ‘truth’, mediation and media as framework of visual communication and practice connecting the large scale installation in a private building that is temporarily open to the public.
In realizing this work Bratu, Melzer and Van Wolputte employed a triangle structure: during the collaboration and their discussions, they attempted to challenge the everyday choices of the individual, who is constantly called upon to judge, analyze and act upon social issues and opinions. The governing line in these questions and dilemmas is the notion of ‘moral being’: the question of how one individual relates to his or her contemporary world.
