Filmform (est. 1950) is dedicated to preservation, promotion and worldwide distribution of experimental film and video art. Constantly expanding, the distribution catalogue spans from 1924 to the present, including works by Sweden’s most prominent artists and filmmakers, available to rent for public screenings and exhibitions as well as for educational purposes.
Bijlmer is a large suburban housing project on the outskirts of Amsterdam, Netherlands. Built in the 1970’s, its intended purpose – as modern suburbia and residence to middle clas s families – failed. The relatively low incomes and social status of its inhabitants made for a problematic relationship with the area’s large-scale buildings, which afforded little social control. In early 2011, Karilampi travelled to Bijlmer to compare the area with Studiegången, a similar, though much smaller neighbourhood in eastern Göteborg, where the artist grew up. Multi-storey buildings, long narrow corridors and a very certain suburban banality are some of the attributes the two ‘projects’ have in common today.
The artist works with an alteration of the documentary format; a symbiosis of hood and documentary, an attempt to develop a new genre, the ‘hoodumentary’. Animated logotypes, his own soundtrack and aesthetics that draw inspiration from the world of Hip Hop and R’n’B and also references to contemporary internet culture are all part of the artist’s distinctive output. Ilja Karilampi’s impressions are drawn together in this video piece h00dumentary, a 22 minute essayistic collage of found footage, researched material and animated graphics. A short film made by Karilampi, aged 12 in Studiegången, is also incorporated in h00dumentary’s drifting picture.
Born in 1983 in Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently based in Stockholm.
In the video “Chief Architect of Gangsta Rap” (2009), Ilja Karilampi explores a rumor that Dr Dre studied to become an architect before joining N.W.A. Taking that work as a starting point, Karilampi has in the recent decade gone on to create a series of exhibitions and works that aesthetically reflect the music world, personal narratives, and odd expressions. Applying various media such as UV-vinyl, film, aluminum & plexiglas, audio tracks, literary texts, and larger installations that play with expectations of time & space, he has proved to be a vibrant & curious artist who depicts our current state.”
– Sten Nordenhake, 2019
“More often than not Karilampi’s behavior genuinely seems to diverge from the day-to-day normative human encounter, predominantly setting itself apart by continuously manifesting—at least allegorically—an unspoiled nature of impulse. The initial frustration of witnessing first hand the artist’s acutely non-gentrified way of interaction exits as rapidly as it enters. Somehow it’s immediately apparent that, if anything, his chaotic posture contributes and parallels only further to the intentionality behind his art practice: a playful homage to a thrivingly memory-less and hyper-plasticized society.
His work, a variety of media, reflects concurrent reality of the personal and public that constantly coincides within the domain of mass-consumerism. Referencing an array of fast-lived pop-culture commodities—like the easily recognizable Drake logo OVO XO or Chobani Greek yogurt—the audience is thrown into a die-hard- sort of cosmos where an inevitable confrontation with (actual) real-life concern takes place.”– COEVAL MAGAZINE, 2016
