M HKA Ensembles

Performance

In collaboration with Greet Verlinden & Marc Holthof

•  Young Artists from Antwerp, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Sint-Martens-Latem, September '83

•  Gallery of the Academy, Waasmunster, October '85

During this performance, three helicopter pilots try to make their model helicopters hover at a fixed point above their pedestals. This action created a lot of smoke and noise, as model helicopters at the time ran on combustible fuel. Hugo Roelandt subtly provoked and reflected on apparatus, play and human wishful thinking. Anticipating the theme of flying in art, this work emphasised technology as autonomous artistic material, without any (artistic) symbolism.

"A further study in MOVEMENT: model-helicopters hovering immobile above the ground. Technology as art, without symbolic references." - Hugo Roelandt 

Flying is an artistically popular theme. From Brueghel’s Fall of Icaros to Leonardo and Panamarenko. But art never really flies: line, structure and form suggest the flying. Art remains stuck to the earth. In Aeromatic Art Project the roles are reversed: art does not show the liberating flying; the flying generates art, and suggests line, colour and structure. Technology acquires a fascinating, festive character. Aeromatic Art Project is part of a series on play, technology and movement. This project is also a play with, and simulation of, situations in reality. As they are shown to us every day by the media. The project refers explicitly to the ancient dream of man wanting to fly as it lives on in the fascination for media images, video games and amusement parks. Play is an evolution of the mind –as Huizinga noted. Technology itself is in Aeromatic Art Project the material used to realise the artistic product. This technology does not stand for anything else but itself. Flying is no longer a symbol; the artistic reference is taken away. Leonardo’s wish-dream has long since become a reality. Aeromatic Art Project does not come out of the blue.

(Abstracts from Hugo Roelandt: Let's Expand The Sky, red. Mark Holthof, Occasional Papers, London, 2016)