Arno Coenen / Sven Påhlsson "Cinema Sounds Synergy VII'

Cinema: Sven Påhlsson, Sprawlville or Life at the Highway Exit Ramp, 2002 ‘Sven Påhlsson's Sprawlville or Life at the Highway Exit Ramp examines the core of American Society and Culture how the American Dream is manifested in today's suburban space with its 3 components: the Suburban Home Developments, the Interstate Highway System and the Mega Shopping Malls. The American Dream to own your own house with a lawn, a pool and a 3 car garage is fueling the expansion of the suburban housing developments. Because of the ever sprawling suburbs, the highways connecting them with the city, have become congested and dangerous. There are no traditional or common spaces in suburbia for people to meet and interact. The nearest definition of a common meeting space would be the shopping mall. The experience of the suburban world is almost unreal, and the diminishing difference between the virtual world as constructed in the computer and the actual spreading suburbia is both uncanny and frightening. The shopping mall world is very synthetic and artificial. This is an actual virtual reality model world that we can experience and live in. Sprawlville is a 3D animated exploration of this burb world.’ (Press release De Appel) Sounds: Arno Coenen, It’s time to bone, 2002 ‘You can watch Arno Coenen's nine one-minute digital animations one at a time (by inserting 20 cent pieces). The animations are a hilarious variation on the overwhelming selection of porno films that can be downloaded on the Internet. The entire repertory is dealt with, all positions and combinations in locations suggesting a never-abating horniness. Coenen previously made an equally hilarious and hallucinogenic ‘road movie’, inspired by his experience of a car trip through the West coast of the United States. In The Last Roadtrip, all stereotypes of the American way of life are exaggerated, creating a virtual world in which pigs fly through the air like helicopters and naked porn stars with enormous silicon tits and gigantic genitals run for their lives while great quantities of blood spill over the tarmac.’ (Press release De Appel)