on the nature of things

01.06.2009

on the nature of things, 2009
comprises five video projections which atmospherically depict and re-interpret our habitat.
In the exhibition space five projections are set up like a landscape. Each of these projections represents one aspect of the manifestation of nature as altered by civilization, so creating a space where a “third nature”‚ is experienced. The projections are always visible but need to be viewed from some distance so that an audio environment can evolve in front of each them. The areas can be experienced just by strolling through them.
Each projection consists of one video loop lasting between 90 seconds and six minutes. In these projections, weather and global energy balance phenomena are set to the sounds of social events such as football, Formula One racing or group laughter. In these, people develop their desires and visions with collective power.
The installations seek out people’s motivations in designing and running their civilization – sporting and event culture, energy management as the heartbeat of modern society. In the end the dream of cold technology sweeps temperature charts and climate change before it.
In his work On the nature of things Lucretius still pre-supposed a closed cosmos and the presence of natural deities. But in the age of On the Internet of things, the title of his work assumes a new flavour: human artefacts acquire their own nature while moving, once they have been created and located, into a self-explanatory state of existence. Here then, technology thus appears to acquire its own justification for existence, which like the creation of the world, is beyond dispute.
In this sense I now depict the first, original nature as a consequence of human behaviour, as it can certainly now be understood in this the era of climate change.
Social upheaval is exemplified not only climatically, or by way of natural disasters, but also by social phenomena and processes.
Laola

On 27 February 1990 I went to the Netherlands to film the sea. I had selected the period of spring tides in the hope of a moderate sea swell. Unexpectedly a storm of historic proportions developed. We had great difficulty keeping the tripod steady and not being blown away ourselves, camera and all. Nineteen years later climate change is on everyone’s lips. Our society has changed a great deal.
I set the surges of enthusiasm from crowds in football stadiums to the waves. With all the drama of the situation – high tides and a rising sea level – a sense of euphoria persisted, stemming as much from the power of the sea as from the naturally synchronised voices of thousands of spectators in a stadium.
quichote

Wind turbines, nothing but wind turbines in the landscape, rotating at slightly different speeds, but not with the local sound of the wind but with the sound of Formula One racing.
We are no longer used to believing that an element in motion does not move “by itself” or “naturally”, we instantly assume it to be driven mechanically, appropriating this with enthusiasm. In the video a sound space develops in which a car is allocated to each wind turbine, but differentiated by its close or distant location. A vision of a technically codified landscape emerges, in which artefacts of civilization appear to be causing natural phenomena such as the wind.

venus I-IV

27.02.1989

Die Installation besteht aus vier Teilen, jede stellt eine Sichtweise dar, wie auf die Natur geschaut wurde in der Menschheitsgeschichte. Sie beginnt mit dem berühmten Text von Lucrez. 

Quellen der Installation Venus I

Installation im Ludwig Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, 1994

Diaprojektionen:

  1. Aufnahme des Paneten Venus, verschleiert von seiner Wolkenhülle
  2. Aufnahme der Venusoberfläche, gemacht von einer der russischen Venerasonden kurz vor ihrem Verglühen

Texte:

  1. Titus Lucretius Carus: Von der Natur der Dinge, Reclam Verlag Leipzig
  2. Bernhard von Fontenelle: Von mehr als einer Welt, ca. 1690
  3. Apuleius Madaura: Der goldene Esel Propyläen-Verlag, Berlin 1920
  4. Carl Sagan: Unser Kosmos, Droemer Knaur, München 1982

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Venus II

Installation, bestehend aus Kleider aus Nesselbatist, Wäscheleine, Zinkwanne, CO2-Gasflasche und gepreßten Pflanzen einer Brachlandgesellschaft

Venus II, Installation im Ludwig-Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz 1994

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Venus III (Aphrodite terra)

Küchentisch, Basaltschotter, BH,
Filmprojektion von Luftaufnahmen auf Glasfläche unter dem BH
1993

Ähnliche Vorstellungen ergaben sich auch für die hellen Gebiete alpha, die sich als weitläufige Hochebene erwiesen haben. Sie erhielten den Namen Aphrodite, nach der Göttin der Liebe und Schönheit, die in der altgriechischen Mythologie für die Venus steht. Innerhalb der Grenzen dieser Hochebene sind zwei große Erhebungen entdeckt worden, …
Ihr Basisdurchmesser beträgt ungefäht 700km und die Höhe in Bezug auf ihre Umgebung 6 bis 8 km.Diese Berge verführen dazu, sie mit großen, schildähnlichen Vulkanen in Verbindung zu bringen. Neben diesen phänomenalen Gebilden, die große Flächen einnehmen und eine fast homogene Reflexionsfähigkeit besitzen, sind relativ kleine Berge, Hügel, Vertiefungen und Talkessel entdeckt worden.

Venus III, Installation im Ludwig-Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz 1994

Venus IV (Normal Null)

Venus IV, Installation im Ludwig-Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz 1994

Installation aus Gipsabgüssen von Frauen, bekleidet mit Angoraunterhosen
neonbeleuchtete Oberfläche mit Texten aus juristischen Lehrbüchern (Probefälle von Ehescheidungen)
Diagramm des ansteigenden Meeresniveaus (Indikator des Treibhauseffekts)
Fotos von Arbeitern der Stadtwerke
Ventilator, Schilder
Ado-Gardine
Bauschutt
1994

Venus II, Installation im Ludwig-Museum im Deutschherrenhaus, Koblenz 1994

Texte zur Arbeit downloaden (PDF)

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