time’s pace

The installation brings together works in different media which explore aspects of the perception of time and space. For each video of the 2 channel video installation I built a specific seating environment referring to the respective video’s pictorial imagery. The video Time is mainly displays an animated sunrise/sunset over the ocean with a red sun disk and a red clock. The seats, round pouches on lazy susans, cite this spinning red disk.
To watch the video Space is viewers sit next to a ceramic cat sculpture on small mdf cabinets with doors, as the imagery of the video mostly depicts opening doors, nesting cubes and cats. The videos are accompanied by several other works in different media picking up conceptual and pictorial elements of the videos.

Time is and Space is are two digitally animated videos to be displayed as a two sided 2-channel video installation. The essay like narration of the voiceover is based on broad and associative research around time and space in philosophy, physics, mathematics, psychology, sociology, art, pop culture and conspiracy theories.
Both use repetitive and recursive motifs, Time is a sunset-sunrise over the ocean, spinning clocks, Space is a starry night with the moon touching the ocean, doors, nesting cubes, and cats.

Please take up space is a seating environment and display. It consists of five white mdf cabinets. Each cabinet has a handmade ceramic knob, a tiny tennis ball. One of the cabinets serves as a pedestal to display the ceramic sculpture Thank you for your participation in my success (Félicette), the other four are meant as seats for viewers of the video. While they are identical in size their interiors are different: One cabinet displays a 17 x 11inch oil painting of an optical illusion of a door behind acrylic glass, another cabinet has a gridded cat hologram behind a two way mirror while the others just have closed doors that leave us guessing what’s inside (Maybe a cat? And if so, is it dead or alive?).

Félicette was the first cat that was sent to space - by French scientists in 1963. She was a stray and is the only cat that ever came back from space alive. She was chosen out of 20 cats that began training with her for her calm personality and because she didn’t gain much weight in training. After her return, several tests were conducted before she was killed so that her brain could be examined. Apparently, nothing world-shaking was found. After her success and death, she was misremembered as Félix, the (male) cat in space. Even commemorative stamps of ‘Félix’ were printed. It took decades until this injustice was corrected. In 2020 finally a statue to remember Félicette was unveiled in France. This is how I envisioned it when I read about it.

During 12/8/2019, noon -12/9/2019, noon I painted 24 identical paintings of a wall clock my parents used to have over our kitchen table after my memory. The clock pictured an illustrative sunrise/sunset over the ocean. I constantly wondered about this strange image that just made sense with the actual time twice a day.
I started a new painting, showing the starting time every full hour and stopped when I had to start the new one. Interestingly while I had a slight learning curve during the first 5 paintings the other paintings are very consistent even though I was pretty tired after 17. I guess the training compensated the fatigue.

This clock titled pas un poisson has a second hand that ticks backwards. The mirrored face of the clock shows an image of a dolphin, which also appears in other works of this body of work around time perception. While dolphins of course are no fish, it loosely references Duchamp’s Roto Relief Poisson Japonais (also in the title). The whole clock is connected to a motor so that it rotates twice per minute in clockwise direction. In this way, while still ticking counterclockwise the second hand describes a minute clockwise. The dolphin “swims” two rounds per minute but just meets the second hand every full minute.

My heart is not a clock is a double-sided clock with two mirrored faces. While the hands on the one side move smoothly and continuously clockwise, the hands on the other side tick backwards so that not only the viewer‘s face is mirrored in the clock, but the clock, so to speak, mirrors itself. It hangs from a braid, a simple structure created by following strict axioms.

This work was installed next to a wheelchair elevator. Of course, accessibility should always and everywhere be the standard. The elevator has a standardized medium height door.
Next to this door I installed a standard pet door for medium sized pets with a mirror behind it on the wall. It resembles as an appliance the wheelchair elevator door, so it is not noticed at first sight. The mirror creates the illusion of an actual pet sized passage into another space, only accessible for medium sized pets, like cats.