“travel dog”, 07' 20'', 2002

GUP-py
The small fish guppy, the namesake of GUP-py (pronounced like guppy), is well-known for a very fast growing population. In contrast to the real guppy GUP-py can merely increase its name: a video of GUP-py is presented by "GUP-py film" and a publication of GUP-py by "GUP-py press".
Since 1997 GUP-py works in Berlin, while it was founded in Japan. GUP-py's activities started already two years before the move to Berlin. It was a handmade book titled "guppi" made by a member of GUP-py on which all forthcoming works of GUP-py are based on.

In the story of "guppi" an insomniac had the idea of counting guppies instead of sheep, because guppies need less space than sheep and they can be easily bred. After he gave birth to a lot of guppies in his imagination one of the guppies had an accident. It lost its fins! Because the person worried about his peewee he could not fall asleep. So he had to return to the beginning of that story.

The work of GUP-py which began with the "guppi"-story can be described within a few words; visualizing that story is what GUP-py does. Sometimes GUP-py is also a figure in its own story. For the works, GUP-py uses various media. Videos, graphics, texts, books, installations — one or a combination of some of these media will be used. Within every medium GUP-py tells a story. The words that tell the story are as important as the visual elements set up in a space. "Space" means not exclusively real space but also the space on a white page like in a publication as a two-dimensional space. The publication "ARTGUP" by "GUP-py press" is an art magazine which concerns exclusively with GUP-py. ARTGUP works as GUP-py's showroom. As well as conceptually as also visually ARTGUP imitates the form of a magazine: ads, an issue's main focus, letters to the editor, etc. The screen design of GUP-py's videos is based on this idea of composing a two- or three-dimensional space as well. In contrast to the feature film which is based on narrative sequences, GUP-py films' main interest is the visual esthetics.

The topics of GUP-py's works are often repeated in other works. The latest work of GUP-py is "Travel Dog" from the series "Dog" which makes the various dog-natures from the imagination world come alive to let us know how we can observe our everyday life in another way.
In the video "Travel Dog" the travel dog joins his owner unnoticed in his baggage. At the destination the dog runs away. While the dog owner is seeking the dog it makes him aware that he is looking for his own way of life. After he has returned to everyday life without getting an answer and after some time has passed by, the dog owner is taken by his dog in mind to another trip of self-discovery.

In this work GUP-py as an artist takes a back seat. But the travel dog as well as the searching figure are merely different forms of appearance of GUP-py. With this work GUP-py wonders where it will arrive after every new finished artwork and why it still should go on with creating art. This question will be surely be posed again in the forthcoming artworks and the travel dog will come alive in one of the next artworks in a different form of appearance. Like counting of guppies, repeated endlessly, GUP-py's story will be repeated as well.

GUP-py