Paranoia Is the New Black

Kadri Veermäe (1/2017)

 

 

14. XII 2016–7. I 2017
At Hobusepea Gallery and Draakon Gallery


I would like to begin on a personal note: when someone asks me where I live in Tallinn, for some reason I always feel a little embarrassed having to answer Kalamaja. Although it is a pleasant neighbourhood, it is an area where unavoidably every spring one has to avoid getting caught up in the trendy local festival.

Karel Koplimets made a good decision when choosing the district of Kalamaja as the central subject of his newest case study. As he has displayed in so many of his previous projects, he can bring out the madness of a specific phenomenon or situation very successfully, while also burying it among technically meticulous material compiled with pedantic persistence. Koplimets' paranoid approach and blending of fiction and reality makes him one of the more contemporary artists in the current wider societal context. "Post-truth" with all it derivatives – he has managed to react to the subject before it has completely become mainstream.

It would be quite difficult to describe "Case No. 12. Kalamaja" comprised of photographs, videos and installation, to someone who has not seen it or does not know his previous work. The artist has noticed that where he lives in Kalamaja, there have been strange and sometimes paranormal occurrences. This hardly creates a rational impression, but it is precisely such "personal eye-witness account" approaches that support the lesser and greater paranoia theories.

In the press release for the exhibition, Koplimets refers to a warning that appeared in the Kalamaja Facebook group, which said that there has been growth in the number of pickpockets and aliens on public transport in the area ("Thieves have appeared in buses in Kalamaja. An acquaintance of mine had an expensive phone stolen. The man sitting next to him stood up and left as soon as my acquaintance noticed something was wrong. Be vigilant, a massive amount of aliens have started appearing here."). And so he starts to follow the trail of extra-terrestrial beings at Hobusepea Gallery, finding a large number of suspicious clues from the streets. Koplimets is able to find details which in their ridiculousness annul their own truthfulness and construct a whole encircling fabrication. In part, "Case No. 12" is reminiscent of his 2013 work "Case No. 7. Pic de Bugarach", which focused on the small alpine village of Bugarach with 187 local residents, to which a large number of UFO enthusiasts and new-age fanatics flocked because according to rumour, it was the only place to survive after the inevitable apocalypse that was to come with the end of the Mayan calendar (21. XII 2012). Koplimets recorded the local atmosphere before and after the end of the world, but did not stop at simply documenting this in itself praiseworthy material, but also added a layer of paranoia constructed by himself.

The combination of documentary and personal mythology in "Case No. 12" makes a substantial step towards stressing the personal mythology because now the "documentary" element is also almost completely fictional, not only in the way it has been contextualised. In this manner, UFO enthusiasts have been replaced by strange occurrences on the dark Kalamaja streets – the most mystical element in the scene is the complete absence of cars because, as anyone who has been there at night knows, every parking spot that could possibly be filled will be filled.

The fact that Koplimets has named his works case studies does not in my opinion mean that viewers are expected to solve them like detectives because, of course, there is no solution, or reaching one is not the point. In terms of case studies, I would rather draw a parallel with mockumentaries, which look like documentaries – everything is presented as truth and it often seems so believable – but are not.

That said, knowing that it is complete fiction does not actually prevent the belief in or spreading of certain elements. For example, in 2002 the French cable channel Arte showed "Dark Side of the Moon" by French director William Karel in which he centred on the theory that Apollo 11 did not land on the Moon in 1969, but actually it was all filmed by the famous director Stanley Kubrick in his studio. Although the fake documentary ends with the much respected people included in the film having trouble remembering the lines they were meant to say, this has not cooled the zeal of conspiracy theorists – why would these people take part in such a stupid project, if not to hide some greater deceit?

It is also possible to consider that specifically in the context of Estonia, the known belief in UFOs among the younger generation has been helped more by the arrival of the TV series "The X-Files" on local TV screens in the second half of the 1990s than by Igor Volke. But Koplimets rules out any approach to "Case No. 12" in the style of "I want to believe" (from the cult poster above the desk of Fox Mulder, the main character in the series), because the light source is not mysterious, as is shown by the installation at Draakon Gallery. That said, some sort of ambivalence remains in the case study – as often does in his work. In this instance the creeping feeling of fear and danger within safe environments, which can often turn out to be illusory, an effect much used by Koplimets, is also not dominant. We can rather see the link to that which seems dangerous, turning out to be innocent: for example, the 2012 work "Suburbs of Fear" starts with an ominous video of suburban streets, but, as we soon find out, it has been filmed on a scale model. That which seems safe may not be at all: in the 2015 work "Case Study No. 9. Monument to Crime" we also see a scale model which consists of just one respectable middle-class house, but which refers to the horrible cases of kidnapping in Austria, where the victim had to spend years in the captor's cellar.

Koplimets' case studies form a series which becomes ever more rich with each new project, thereby affecting the meanings of the earlier studies. They are all captivating. Soon enough we will also be able to see Koplimets' exhibition "Case Study No. 11. TALSINKI" at the Tallinn Art Hall Gallery and indeed it will be interesting to see how an artist dealing with paranormal phenomena and fear, solves the subject he has set himself – cross-border commuting.

 

Kadri Veermäe works as a journalist for the Postimees daily newspaper.

 

 

 

Karel Koplimets
Case No. 12. Kalamaja
2016
installation, manhole, asphalt, curbstones, light,
smoke machine, dimensions variable
Installation view at Draakon Gallery
Courtesy of the artist

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