Video installation in public space
In the context of the project Freizone Dorotheergasse (Wiener Festwochen and Galerie Metropol), Vienna (AT)
In co-production with Gudrun Bielz
The work 'Videoschwelle' was conceptualized as part of an exhibition in public space, at the Dorotheergasse, a commercial area in Vienna's city centre. The four concrete sleepers were fixed on the road and were staining and blocking vehicles. The objects were repeatedly destroyed (the safety glass smashed, the object damaged by tire profiles, and so on). However, in the space of the gallery, the objects were exhibited in a protected format.
"The position from which images and codes look at us today does not really matter anymore, because they are omnipresent. By now, we are accustomed to their wild proliferation, just as in Nature (or, perhaps, instead of Nature). This proliferation is most striking when viewed on a screen. The screen draws our attention both day and night- it is the sun and the moon and the representation/interface of reality. It is the receptacle for all our important information, for it channels extracts of reality into meanings. The monitor can also be a threshold that, once on the street, becomes a conscious barrier, stopping the flow of vehicles, the urge for total mobility. (Gerhard Lischka)
The monitors integrated into concrete modules indicate obstacles to perception. They formulate a resistance to a self-evident process, be it the movement of one's own body or eyes. The monitor that functions as a television is mostly mounted at or above the viewer's head height. Here it is approaching with its image sequences from below. Through the image's movement, it directs attention towards direct visual contact with the ground." - Ruth Schnell, quoting Peter Assmann