ENDLESS DIALOGUE
A Mode for Perception / Visions of Space and Time
Elisabeth Wildling’s works deal with the experience of discontinuity in spatial and temporal perceptions. They speak about the relationship of individuals with their environment as well as question mechanisms behind constructions of identity and authenticity.
Her work is characterized by a conceptual approach. The spectrum of the artist’s work includes video and digital media installations, photographic and paper works. Her interest is dedicated to the human perception of various constellations of objects and space, as well as to their mental representations, transmitted and manipulated by the use of media. Artistic-spatial orchestrations that irritate or disrupt visual spatial orientation as well as the perception of time constitute the focus of her work.
The exhibition »Endless Dialogue« shows partially interactive media installations, at times even integrating the visitor into works like endless (Vienna, 2011), HamletHamlet (Vienna, 2007/2011) and Anne Frank (Amsterdam, 2008/2011) that will be implemented anew for the exhibition at the Galerie Raum mit Licht. What these works share is an experience of perception between progressive irritation and unexpected stimulation, the result of which is a coordinated orchestration of sensations.
In the video installation endless for example, the viewer is caught in an irresolvable optical contradiction through the simultaneously approaching and receding spatial elements. Through the movements and the parametrical changes in the “device”, which causes a disturbance in the perspective, the space becomes an active structure. Using a double projection, an entire pictorial space is created in which elements within the space enter into a play of perceptions. An irresolvable contradiction emerges from the difference between the both perceived images. During the process of perception, the differences between the single images come into dialogue with each other.
The feeling of an underlying threat, as well as emotions of fear and grief are evoked through multiple projections and decaying wallpaper in the piece Anne Frank: Leeft en Werkt. Digitally manipulated, the patterns are composed of layers of nostalgic motifs. In extreme slow-motion, only discernible as a subtle and relentless process, layer after layer is peeled back until all that remains are naked walls. The projection space becomes a metaphor for the empty space of memory to which the performers of the play go at the end of the performance.
HamletHamlet, a contribution to a play, also features projected graphic animations on the stage-set thereby creating a parallel world. With its own visual dramaturgical sequence, moving structures develop from a filmic flatness becoming a multi-dimensional space of light through the projections on the constructions in the space. Hamlet, weakened by the poison of hebenon, gradually dissipates during the course of the play expanding and overtaking the space with stroboscopic-like projections.
Katerina Cerny