Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven / AMVK

    ENNL

    Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven (also known as AMVK) is an artist of singular complexity. Born in 1951 in Antwerp, where she still lives and works, she has been active since the 1970s as a visual artist, graphic designer and performer. She has always been a pioneer. She should, first and foremost, be considered an artist for the future. AMVK’s practice is truly interdisciplinary.

    M HKA wants to introduce Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven to a wider audience as an innovator of forms and interpreter of moods - as oxygen of the whole society.

    What Would I Do in Orbit?

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    (c)image: AMVK
    Carrel 1 (Enigma), 2014
    Anne-Mie Van Kerckhoven / AMVK
    Installation , 240 x 201 x 62 cm
    cabinet and mirror

    "A carrel is a kind of separated cupboard that also serves as a database – it’s a moving study table. In the Middle Ages, carrels were found in monastic libraries, where monks used them to isolate themselves from the environment's noise.

    The first carrel I made for a crematorium, the next three were for an exhibition at Zeno X Gallery. They were shown together with large PVC collages, based on quotations from the mystic Marguerite Porete and on Karol Szymanowski’s composing manner. Each of the carrels stands for a step in the development of data processing machines: they are computers, in other words.

    Their titles are: Enigma, Colossus, Connection Machine and Coromandel Disturbed 1 and 2. The first was an encoding machine, the second a decoding machine, and the third was launched as a revolutionary idea to put the processing system (the processor) precisely where the information is stored: in the memory. This way, the memory becomes the processor in the computer. I drew a parallel to the stages of a human life."

    − AMVK

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