SOL © Timo Ohler
installation ZEE, 2008.
Conceptually it continues to probe processing phenomena occurring at sensory thresholds in human perception, in conjunction with experiencing the sublime.
The installation draws on the near absence of a visible space, the loss of perceptual boundaries and generally the formation of what could be best described as a splendid void.
SOL is staged mostly in complete darkness. Initiating the human’s eye adaptive ability for night vision, to see with barely any light present, visitors to SOL gather in a darkened lounge, before entering the actual installation.
A pulsing drone sound-scape, gradually increasing its presence, accentuates the first few minutes of the work spent in complete darkness. Eventually, a narrow high pitch buzz
appears, intensifies, and at its peak finally triggers a massive single 'white out' light flash, resulting in a pure, all encompassing infinite sphere of light. For a brief moment darkness gives way to overwhelming, near blinding light, with the actual architectural space still
invisible, alas now turned into a white 'ganz-feld'.
The momentary sensation of excess luminosity quickly dissipates, morphing into equally short-lived flicker - rendering a fragmented kaleidoscopic impression (comparable to the visual effect in ZEE or FEED).
Before the visitor can start to 'see' the impression trails off in both intensity and frequency, back to, again, complete darkness.
After a period of time and 'reloading' of the giga-flash, a new light burst fires, and another wave of stroboscopic light follows, to be trailing off and fading into darkness yet again.
This cycle - of darkness, whiteout-flash and stroboscopic sequence - establishes a basic pulse of 'day and night', in hortened and amplified manner. The pulse / duration of this cycle varies, more like in an organism rather than a clockwork.ORT, after its initial presentation in Le Havre, is now shown indoors in its "unrolled" long stretch panorama form.
One of the challenges for SOL is to create an even spatial, 'ganz-feld' light impression without using fog as in the prior work of the series.
SOL
© Hentschläger, 2017
SOL at CTM 2017 is supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum, the ENCAC network, Creative Europe Programme of the European Union
Co-commissioned by OK Offenes Kulturhaus Oberösterreich, Linz
Co-produced by CTM Festival
Curator: Isabelle Meiffert
Management: Richard Castelli / Epidemic
Production Assistance Chicago: Pablo Monterrubio Benet, Yan Zhou
Technical Supervisor Touring: Alexander Boehmler
Thanks to: Martin Sturm, Genoveva Ruckert