Video projection. Permanent Installation.



Videopainting No. 6 shows the lighting of a match recorded by a high speed camera. Though this action normally only lasts a few seconds it has been drawn out by approximately twenty minutes through computer processing. Other than past Videopaintings, during the last three minutes the process is continually sped up so that the flame is ultimately blown out in real time.

The work should be installed in a completely darkened room. When a viewer enters the space s/he sees nothing at first. S/he soon notices a point of light that continually moves, changes its form amorphously and slowly becomes larger as well as brighter. It takes about seven minutes to recognize that this shining form is a flame. It is hardly noticeable that the indefinite black space grows brighter with the light source, and increasingly takes shape along with the objects in the room.

Technical data: Endless video film (color), video reproducer, video beamer, shelves

In contrast to the other Videopaintings the 30 minute lasting computer-generated film continually speeds up during the last 3 minutes so that the flame is blown out in real-time.



The Videopaintings deal with computer generated video films that treat television or the internet as media, which show images that are exemplary of human behavior. The starting point of my so-called Video-paintings are recordings of everyday happenings or isolated gestures which are usually arranged to function in an unbroken, endless movement. Whether I fall back upon found images from movies or even the raw material of film essentially depends upon the access speed. An important aspect seems to be that the selected sequences of images have something universal, general or simply typical. In the computer, these truly unspectacular actions are processed in such a way that the viewer could doubt if s/he isn't looking across at a freeze frame. There is no staccato-like jerking usually telling slow motion that would lend a clue to the continually flowing motion on the threshold of perception: once the brain finally realizes the image has changed, this process is already over.

I would like to describe the Video-paintings main idea in reference to Erik Satie's musique d'ameublement as video d'ameublement. The endless-videos are conceived to run on loops so that one must not continually pay attention to them. Their existence should be as natural as a picture on the wall or even a television at home, left switched on. On the other hand, I have set up certain video films as installations that take hold of the entire space. In this case I call them Videopaintings; as a monitor-version or as a plain projection I call them VidŽo d' ameublement.


(videostream)