Wood, Pentakta Lens, Microfiche, 2008
Created for the Exhibition, "Sex Brennt - Magnus Hirschfled's Insitute for Sexual Science and the Book Burning", in the Berlin Museum of Medical History is an institution of the Charité, Berlin (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité)
A four meter long reading table with 12 holes from which light is emanating. One peers into the 'peephole' lens which magnifies a small circular image of documents from a statistical analysis by Hirschfeld from 1904 and images of archival objects from the destroyed institute in Berlin which have been printed on Microfiche in miniature. One's eyes gradually focus on an illuminated miniaturized text or an object which has been magnified to the limit of perceptual readability.
The optics have been adapted from the "Pentakta HL100 microfiche hand reading apparatus" ('Mikrofilm-Handlesegerät im Taschenformat') which were produced by Pentacon Dresden for use in scientific research and by the State Security System (the STASI).
Source: Hirschfeld, Magnus: Das Ergebnis der Statistische Untersuchungen über den Prozentsatz der Homosexuellen, Verlag von Max Spohr, 1904
Construction: Olf Kreisel
Exhibited: Berlin Museum of Medical History is an institution of the Charité (Berliner Medizinhistorisches Museum der Charité); 2008
Rotating Stroboscopic Text Apparatus, 2003
A motor-driven rotating cylinder, 80 centimeters high and with a diameter of one meter, mounted on a stand. The core of the cylinder contains an wired array of 100 flashbulbs which face the outer surface. This surface is composed of multiple layers of plexiglass and film which appear white when inactive.
Approximately every seven seconds, an extremely intensive 360 degree flash illuminates eleven circular text phrases which are inscribed into the cylinder surface. As the cylinder is slowly turns, one percieves new text fragments with each flash, which are only readable as an afterimage in the brain, white letters on a black background.
The texts are derived from scientific texts based on the phenomena of Flashbulb Memory. Texts from: R. Brown & J. Kulik, "Flashbulb Memories", in: Cognition, 5, 1997, S. 73-99; RB Livingston, "Reinforcement, in: The Neuro Sciences", A Study Program, Rockefeller Press, New York 1967; U. Neusser, "Memory Observed: Remembering in Natural Context", W. H. Freeman, New York 1982; etc.
The installation Recovery Rotation was created in cooperation between the Festival "Conceptualisms: Contemporary Receptions in Music, Art, and Film", commissioned by the Akademie der Künste Berlin, and made possible by funds from the foundation Hauptstadtkulturfonds and the Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken.
Exhibited:
Akademie der Kunste, Berlin, 2003 (Commission)
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
Galerie Oqbo, Berlin, 2014
Plot, Black Letters on Coated Canvas, 2003
The work was installed in the Galerie Anselm Dreher in 2003. The text roll is approx. 1.20 x 5 meters and is tied with cord to the walls of the space. The material is bowed in such a way that from the given viewing platform, the text disapears into a landscape of letters on the horizon. The lines of text read backwards from the viewing point, until they disapear.
The positive black of the text gives way into a negative reading, as the white between the letters turn into rivolets, streams and navigations ways. The work addresses quesions of readablity through interruptions created by image as a reflection on the attempts of the mind to access and navigate fragments from the past, where time and visual perspective collide.
The text is an excerpt from the "Preface" to Stages on Life's Way" (1845), Søren Kierkegaard's essay on memory and recollection.
Exhibited:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, Berlin, 2003
Galerie e/static, Torino, 2007
Kang Contemporary, Berlin, 2023
MDF Table and Chair, Internally mounted TFT-Display and Computer, 2000
In 1925, Freud wrote a text that compares the faculty of memory to a child's toy known as a Wunderblock. It consists of a wax slab stretched with cellophane, upon which a text may be inscribed, and just as readily erased by lifting the cellophane layer up and away from the wax slab. In contrast to Freud's model, in which the pressure of the act of inscription onto the cellophane surface continues in the direction of the underlying layer of wax, in 'The Wunderblock', the original selection and entry of data has been concluded in the past. The movement originates from ROM and is held in RAM, before travelling up towards the surface.
Quite independently of our own states of presence or absence, the installation searches and inscribes autonomously. One has the impression that the underlying textual sources can never be perceived in their entirety. Because the many texts fragments are inscribed and erased simultaneously, one can read a given fragment only with difficulty before it vanishes. The model of memory demonstrated here is at once highly unstable, fragmentary, incomplete, perishable and ephemeral. The sentence fragments appearing and disappearing on the screen describe a process of finding and loss, safeguarding and destruction.
Texts from: Sigmund Freud, "Notiz über den Wunderblock", Wien 1925; "A Glossary for Archivists, The Society of American Archivists", Chicago 1992
Software: Alexandr Krestovskij
Exhibited:
Galerie Anselm Dreher, 2000
Art Forum, Berlin, 2000
Gemäldegalerie, 2001
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
Kunstverein Hannover, 2003
Jewish Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Science Museum / Institute of Psychoanalysis, London, 2011
Plotted Text Scroll, Illuminated Vitrine, 1999
This archive about archives questions the permanence of data storage, presented as discussions between professional archivists and in institutional reports, most of which were collected in the internet. The archive becomes a metaphor for a resistance against forgetting and loss.
The work is presented in a darkened room which is illuminated by the antique form of an enormous paper scroll, seemingly without a beginning or an end, representing a sacred object with biblical overtones. The scroll is mounted on a wooden base containing florescent tubes, with a glass surface. Each line of text extends to 18 meters, flowing on to the beginning of the next line. The eye follows this stream of content, until one loses one's horizontal location - resulting in a shifting of one's visual attention as one springs vertically to a new starting position. 997 text fragments and thumbnail images from various digital and archival sources, collected 1993 - 1999. All entries are time-stamped from the moment of collection.
Exhibited:
Hamburger Bahnhof Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin, 1999-2000
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
Draiflesson Collection, Mettingen, 2015-16
Welded Steel Container.
The "Time Capsule" was first exhibited within the interactive installation work, "Memory Arena" (1995-96).
The contents are not indicated and the work is inscribed with the following text:
TIME CAPSULE
DEDICATED 22, November, 1963 A.D.
TO BE OPENED. 4 Juli, 2776 A.D.
CONTENTS UNKNOWN
"Time Capsule, a container storing historical documents and objects that is to be opened at some future date. The contents, which, may include historical documents and artifacts, are intended to reveal something about contemporary civilization to future generations. A capsule is often prepared to commemorate a notable event, such as a World's Fair or the landing on the moon. It is generally buried in the ground."
Exhibited:
Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1996
Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003
in the exhibition "FOUNTAIN 100" in Flutgraben e. V., Berlin, 2017
Wood, Inscribed Plexiglass, illumination, 1992
A historical hypertext becomes a three-dimensional image. A black box is divided by four lateral sheets of glass inscribed from edge to edge with layers of finely printed texts. The text layers are illuminated from below. The texts are reconstructed from the tens of thousands of biographical fragments.
As one peers into this sea of information, it is as if one stares into a bottomless well filled with multiple levels of floating texts in depth. One focuses one's eyes on any given text fragment on a given level, as the other text levels defocus and blur, becoming illegible. One's attention might wander to a remote or nearby fragment, our eyes continually refocusing as we isolate and connect a related or unrelated name or phrase.
A grain of sand is propelled into our field of vision for a single moment, separating forground from background, only to vanish gradually into the collective ocean of memory. The intention is to realize, in three dimensions, a hypertext as a metaphorical space which contains in compressed form a database of all mankind.
Texts from: "Who's Who in Central & East Europe 1933"
Exhibited:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1992
Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, Hamburg, 1995
Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel; Marstall, Munich, 1995
Arken Museum for Modern Art, Cultural Capital of Europe, Copenhagen, 1995
In Medias Res, Istanbul, 1996
Jewish Museum, Vienna, 1997
Veletrzni Palac, National Gallery, Prague, 1997
Jewish Museum, Frankfurt am Main, 2005
Kunsthochschule Braunschweig, 2006
Draiflesson Collection, Mettingen, 2015
Kang Contemporary, Berlin, 2023
Digital Paper Plot, 1992
Digital plot on paper, 91.5 cm. x 4.5 m.; mounted on wooden poles painted black, horizontally placed on floor
Texts: Who's Who in Central & East Europe 1933
Lists of fragmental details such as addresses and organizations which were sampled from the 'Who's Who in Central & East Europe' database and are printed on large endless text scrolls using an architectural plotter and are mounted on wooden poles. These scrolls represent both an archaic form of writing, seemingly without a beginning and an end, as well as a sacred object with biblical overtones.
Exhibited:
Galerie Ozwei, Berlin, 1992
Kulturfabrik Kampnagel, Hamburg, 1995
In Medias Res, Istanbul, 1996
