Category Archives: Frankfurt am Main / Germany

Glass Blocks #3

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Glass block walls in a building in Frankfurt am Main: In front of a glass block wall, the branches and leaves of a large thistle (Sonchus gomerensis) move with the wind. The course of the sun changes the light on the plant and the reflections in the glass. Selected glass stones are recorded in a fixed section over a long period of time.
The final video image is assembled using the building block principle: a glass block cut out in the video editing programme and inserted 15 times into the image grid, each offset on the time axis by eight seconds, fills the format.
15 time courses are thus made visible simultaneously across the individual fields, and thus the different states of a time span of 2 minutes as a complex in each individual video frame.
Since the timeline offset of eight seconds is in the time of short memory, the structure of the repetition remains clearly recognisable. Equivalent to this, the changes in the light and the ever-changing movements of the plant run through the repetitive stone.
The recordings and combinations of two stones, which last several hours, are presented synchronously on two monitors hanging next to each other. The size of the stones in the video image corresponds to the dimension of the stones in the wall.

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Automatic Door

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The automatic door of a bank building and its inscription rotate steadily. Thus, the city’s reflections are
replicated in a fragmented manner. This process runs asynchronously to a sequence shown on a
monitor placed next to the revolving door.

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Automatic Door  Automatiktür
Commerzbank AG, Head Quarter
Frankfurt am Main 2011
Video Installation / Exhibition View
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie H.264 / 1920×1080 / 25p
Mute. 12 min 15 sec. Loop

Commerzbank Logo

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Lobby, Headquarters of the Commerzbank, Frankfurt on the Main: Upon opening and closing of a round glass door, its movable elements shift the inscription lines of the company logo affixed to the door. The characters slide past one another, shortly stop and spin back. The camera records these movements. Monitors function as their multiplication.

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Frankfurt Window

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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.

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Haus Setup

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The perspective from the window towards a house and the reflection of this house in the window pane are framed in equal parts in the format of a video image. With the movement of the window pane the reflection of the house is repositioned on the glass surface. The space of the picture changes gradually, and new building constellations appear within the image detail.
By opening and closing the shutters that are installed in front of the window, different parts of the house are successively obscured and again released. Determined by the tempo of the engines of the shutters, the architectural space constantly changes also. All processes of opening and closing and the possibility of the reflection are combined to a sixty minute long sequence of image space- and perspective possi­bilities.

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Venetian Blind

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An office at Frankfurt’s East Harbour: By opening the window in one corner of the room, the view of the other window is overlaid. In the opened window a building of the harbour area is reflected, through the closed window an industrial landscape is visible. The video shows the overlaying.
During the recording time, the venetian blinds in front of both windows are automatically raised and lowered as well as the opening angle of their slats modified. The varying angles allow a view towards the industrial landscape or show the house in its reflection. An overlaid view is facilitated, determined by the brightness within the theme.
By mechanical means a crossfading effect is achieved. The rhythmical mechanical movement of the venetian blinds create a smooth transition. The concrete representation of the vistas is either directly shown, mirrored and superposed or the lines of the venetian blinds stand out more prominently, and thus the depiction of the external space seemingly dissolves.

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