Horizon^/1

2005, PAL 4:3, 4:30 min, colour, stereo, music - TU M': in the car, 2. camera: Dariusz Kowalski


© Video still
A city’s horizon. In violent movements, first left, then right, a pan across the horizon, it is scanned, searched, the movement stops abruptly, then accelerates, zooming into the city’s core. But the city does not become visible, remaining unrecognizable behind 
the image. This is the perception of an apparatus making innumerable attempts to capture, recognize and possibly understand, all of which fail. The gaze of the apparatus systematically obstructs itself, its electronic field of view is subjected to interference from the material, frequency interference, static, an absence of information. In addition, the picture is extremely fuzzy, making no more than a mere guess at the motif possible.

These errors, this omission and obstruction, they create, give shape to the subject, the vague representation. They call atten-tion to the apparatus itself, make its presence tangible, its optical inadequacy, its visual difference is at the same time its esthetic project. Shannon’s law concerning entropy and information may be applicable: A maximum of information entails/creates a maximum of interference. Likewise, the peeping sound is familiar with only two states, fast and dotted. It seems to drive the image and its search on, in vain. When the movement slows near the end and the veiled city almost completely dissolves into a diffuse grey, the viewer’s own perception may be overcome with a certain uneasiness, a product of the uncertainty felt when wondering who made an attempt to recognize something.

(Marc Ries; Translation: Steve Wilder)




© Video still

Closeness

15.10.- 11.11.2005
E:vent, London, UK 2005
promoting emergent practices in contemporary art


© Exhibition view

Annja Krautgasser is an architect and media artist. Her main artistic concern centres around issues of space, time and presence. Krautgasser moves between virtual and real architectures seeking out the potentials of technology to create new ways of thinking about the places we inhabit. Krautgasser’s practice articulates a sophisticated understanding of location and creates a conceptual apparatus’ that stimulates a locative literacy and awareness. Her work prompts us to rethink our sense of place, locality and horizon.

In most cases spatial memory is based on personal experiences of presence. Space points and space characteristics are stored in the memory and usually reused for the purpose of orientation. The spatial parameters are often noticed very individually and subjectively. Storing, compressing and mediating spatial characteristics are the main focus of work in this exhibition.



[VIDEO]: Horizon ^/1