Record Player Plattenspieler
Moscow 2010
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie H.264 / 1920×1080 / 25p
Mute. 15 min. Loop
Day of Victory
On May 8th and 9th, on the Day of the Victory over Fascism, a national holiday in Russia, Moscow’s huge video screens in the city centre do not display any advertising spots but show dramatic film scenes from the Second World War, the triumph of the Red Army. From a stationary camera position the large screens are recorded as an essential component of the city.
In the year 2009, the war events on the screens, the urban traffic and the flying flags blend rather naturally into parallel processes. In the year 2010, the house on the riverbank – residence of the Muscovite nomenklatura during the thirties – serves as background for the war events on the screens and the urban traffic.
Day of Victory. Moscow, May 9, 2010
Tag des Sieges. Moskau, 9. Mai 2009
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie
H.264 / 1920×1080 / 25p
Mute. 14 min 56 sec. Loop
Day of Victory. Moscow, May 9, 2010
Tag des Sieges. Moskau, 9. Mai 2010
Video Stills
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie
H.264 / 1920×1080 / 25p
Mute. 17 min 56 sec. Loop
Transformer House Wall / Two Doors
Despite their prohibition, graffiti advance further towards Moscow’s city centre. As a kind of non-conformist expression, graffiti are not tolerated. Instead of taking costly restoring measures, the public authorities have the house walls partially repainted in different colour shades of oil- and dispersion paint. Structured house walls come into being through these large multi-coloured sections.
Some house walls are systematically photographed, section-by-section, and then digitally pieced together to large formats. The texture of the wall and the paint structures are meticulously captured. A strong illusion of spatial depth is achieved by combining numerous individual perspectives. The wall sections with their repainted traces will be brought to other (exhibition-)spaces as large-sized photographic works/objects.
Notes
Slips of paper are pasted to the rear walls of Muscovite supermarkets or at bus stations. The public authorities remove them again. New slips of paper will be applied: These concern private offers and wanted ads for rooms, apartments, massages, computer assistance and instant loans. These notes built a thick layer of paper, which is fraying on the edges.
For the photo installation a section of the wall has step-by-step been recorded and digitally assembled. The composition of numerous individual perspectives translates the spatiality of the frayed paper to the illusion of the montage. These unofficial ads arrive as printout in another space.
Notes Zettel
Moscow. March 2010
Weißfrauen Diakoniekirche Frankfurt 2011
Installation / Exhibition View
Photographs / Digital Montage
Pigment Print on adhesive-backed Film
500×150 cm
Bus Station
Slips of paper are pasted to the rear walls of Muscovite supermarkets or at bus stations. The public authorities remove them again. New slips of paper will be applied: These concern private offers and wanted ads for rooms, apartments, massages, computer assistance and instant loans. These notes built a thick layer of paper, which is fraying on the edges.
The video work shows the rear wall of a bus station, pasted with slips of paper, which gently rise and fall in every gust of wind. Simultaneously, the observer perceives through the glass or reflected in it the movements of the city. In this video installation the projector’s fan seems to generate the wind stirring the slips of paper.
Bus Station Bushaus
Moskau 2010
galerie baer. Dresden 2013
Video Installation / Exhibition View
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie H.264 / 1920×1080 / 25p
Mute. 60 min. Loop
Frankfurt Window
The former Oberfinanzdirektion / Regional Finance Office building on Adickesallee in Frankfurt: On the eighth floor, a view of the cityscape is recorded, indirectly, using only the reflections in a window. By slowly moving the window, the buildings of the surrounding neighbourhood gradually appear at one edge of the pane and disappear at the other edge. The wall recesses visible through the window pane, and the window frame divide the video vertically. In contrast, the skyline, as well as the lines of the moving window blinds pass through horizontally. The video starts and ends with the window closed.
Storming of Berlin
The Museum of the Great Patriotic War, Poklonnaya Gora, in Moscow is devoted to the commemoration of the victory of the Red Army over fascism in World War II. The gigantic building in the western part of the Russian capital was inaugurated in 1995, during the Yeltsin era. However, the decision for constructing such a memorial had, already been taken by the Central Committee back in 1957. Even in Russia 2.0, this symbolic place represents the heart of the post-communist official state policy, as the ceremonies of the anniversaries of the victory over Nazi Germany allways show.
The video work Sturm auf Berlin (Storming of Berlin) is based on one out of six battle dioramas, exhibited in the basement of the intensely frequented Poklonnaya Gora. Combining paintings and real objects, the museum’s installation depicts a fight scene of the Soviet Army in Berlin with bombed-out houses and the burning Reichstag in the background. The historical reference is the final battle of Berlin, which lasted from April 16th until May 2nd 1945. On April 30th, the Red Army had occupied the Reichstag building and on May 2nd, 1945 World War II. had ended, upon the final surrender of the German forces.
LENIN
The video shows a bust of Lenin full-screen standing at its place in the main hall of the Leningradsky Railway Station in Moscow. The bust is bathed in a storm of ever-changing colourful light of promotional video clips cast from the huge video screen opposite. The bust is highlighted in the colourful illumination and vanishes again in the dark, thus it oscillates between sculpture and two-dimensionality.
LENIN
Moscow 2009
Capture 10
Digital Video (XGA or PAL)
Mute. 8 min 5 sec. Loop
LENIN
Lenin’s sculpture, frozen in a vibrant gesture, towers in front of dark clouds floating past the sky and behind the rhythmically rising water jets of a water game at Moskovskaya Square in Saint Petersburg. Sometimes the water game blankets the monument. The alternating sunlight shows the sculpture of Lenin either three-dimensionally or as a plane silhouette. Three directions of movement run simultaneously: the clouds passing by horizontally, the vertically climbing water jets and the diagonally rising and subsiding sunlight. These movements are in contrast to the rigid presence of the sculpture.
LENIN
Saint Petersburg 2009
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie H.264 / XGA or PAL
Mute. 28 min 56 sec. Loop
ПРАВДА / PRAVDA
20 km north of Moscow spreads the small town, which bears the name of the popular state-owned newspaper of the USSR “Pravda”. Pravda means truth and justice.
At the town’s station people are waiting underneath the place-name sign, which is obliterated by passing trains and becomes again and again visible.
My presence on the other platform and the clearly exposed video camera are accepted by the travelers without comment. The on-going shooting is turned into the counterpart of waiting.
