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.
Over the course of one year, this video series (22 parts) shows always the same section: a playing field with a climbing contraption, behind that a school and a residential block, as well as a couple of trees, recorded through a window with a fixed camera. The horizontal pathway together with the vertical trees and the left window frame form a raster. The movement of the window pane causes the reflection to wander, whereby the things move and the people, who at a direct view walk along the pathway, seem to go into the opposite direction and to disappear. Thus, astounding presumptions, synchronisms and repetitions are generated, dependent on the position of the reflecting window wing. The video sequences start and end with the images of the inner surface of the window wing, which upon opening and closing, in a close proximity to the lens, generate a broad black field.
In the Russian language the terms ‘красивый’ (beautiful) and ‘красный’ (red) are related. Yet, in German ‘the colour red’ is often understood as a kind of warning. Furthermore, in both cultures ‘the colour red’ bears a political significance.
The video shows a long panel of red tulle, which has been spread out across a pathway and over a free, snow-covered space. The pedestrians cross the red line without hesitation. The crosswind sculpts the delicate material into calligraphic figures and finally blows it off the image.
Красная Линия Red Line Rote Linie
Moscow 2009
Apple HDV / Quicktime Movie H.264 / 1920×1080 / 25p
Mute. 25 min. Loop
A residential building in Moscow, constructed in the sixties, in the District of Matveyevskoye. The house is doughnut-shaped with a diameter of more than one hundred meters. A green area serves as its centre. The residential quarters embrace the courtyard and affect its atmosphere.
In the years 2006 and 2007, the Round House appears like a cell in the vast urban body of Moscow, a cell, where the changes of the entire city are filtered and illustrated in a decelerated fashion. The unsophisticated nature of details, in particular of windows and doors made of cheap materials and the explicit colouration, are not yet conform with the new Western lifestyle. The space of the Round House permitted the Soviet modes of everyday residential living in its practical and also decorative arrangements a prolonged survival. Photographs, video sketches and a projection draft relate to this transition.
Круглий Дом Round House Rundes Haus
Moscow 2006/07
Photographs, Video Sketches
View in the inner courtyard,
Perspective on the house from the residential building aside