livecam installation
commissioned by Städtische Galerie Nordhorn (ger) for the solo exhibition "Sind wir schon in Echtzeit?"
backdrop image: 345cm x 812cm (h/w), and various props: inkjet print on photo paper on honeycomb cardboard
platform, path, ramp, and bridge: mdf, floor: pvc foil 812cm x 730cm (w/d)
viewer: 12" monitor in metal casing, painted, on metal pole 153cm (h)
PC, webcam, live broadcast software,
video animation for sky, loop 4min (no sound)
Passage is a multipart livecam installation commissioned by the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn. In front of a huge printed backdrop image showing an idyllic garden landscape with an unnaturally blue sky, a small accessible path leads up to a platform, which is shaped like a little island elevating from the water surface. Printed wing props showing vegetation and terrain elements are placed in front in order to hide the construction and to suggest the depth of a landscape perspective.
On top of the platform is a metal viewing apparatus which the visitors can have a look through. Unlike expected, this is not an instrument to observe things in the distance, instead the viewer shows a live recording of the visitor themself, in the very moment they are looking through the binoculars, captured by a hidden camera. Even more: in the view of the hidden camera, there is the illusion of constantly changing cloud formations replacing the blue key color of the background.
Passage is a further development of the livecam installations Mountain Top (BALTIC Centre, Gateshead, 2005), and Loch (S.M.A.K. Gent, 2009). Other than these, the surprising illusion is not created by back image and wing parts alone, but in combination with the animated sky video loop in the broadcast application stream. This puts the spectator into a strange live image of a completely sythetic scenery: Reality that is only established when they are looking at it.