POL © Emmanuel Valette
Using high intensity light, video and audio projection including massive sub-bass POL subjects the audience to a overwhelming flow of stimuli and strives to achieve a perceptional situation of disorientation and recollection. POL "attacks" the audience, by challenging all sensual barriers. The main theme is overload.
POL is a semi-surround environment composed of 7 videoscreens forming a parabolic panorama that fills the entire viewfield of the audience. It has a dedicated centre, from which the sounds and images originate and from there then flicker from screen to screen, towards the edges, emanating a sense of "visual radiation".
POL features audiovisual samples of a human being, of acclaimed singer/performer Diamanda Galás. The show virtually buries the few seconds of electronic evidence = samples of this performer in waves of audiovisual noise, transforms it into something inbetween an alien and an angel. Realistic “Flesh portions” occur flashlike in a continuous stream of abstract noise mass. Video becomes a light source rather than presenting images. No light / images at all but sound Is a crucial part of the POL dramaturgy.
In its now final form, POL is presented as a live performance or installation.
POL 1.0 - World premiere: ISEA Liverpool, 4th September 1998
POL 2.0 - World premiere: Zeitfluss / Salzburg Festival, 2nd August 1999
POL 3.0 - World premiere: Wien Modern, Vienna, 15th November 2000
POL Final version - World premiere: Romaeuropa, Roma, November 2008
POL by Granular-Synthesis (Kurt Hentschläger & Ulf Langheinrich)
original voice and performance for video Diamanda Galás
original software Realtime Audio+Video "VARP 9" Dirk Langheinrich & Granular-Synthesis
photography director video recording Diamanda Galás Wolfgang Lehner
director video recording Diamanda Galás Florian Michel
original version 1998 commissioned by Hull Time Based Arts, Hull co-production ;
Ars Electronica, Linz and Institut für Bildmedien / ZKM Karlsruhe,
funded by Arts Council of England's National Lottery, as part of the Year of Photography and Electronic Image 1998, WIEN Kultur and MEDA tm - Neue Kraft Neuer Sinn
final version 2008 production Granular-Synthesis, Wien in co-production with Epidemic, Paris, Berlin - Romaeuropa Festival 2008, Rome - Le Volcan, Le Havre