karla kracht

off documenta

"Naked Tank" at station 15

2 aug 2007
5 aug 2007

Abstraction, physicalness of the projected and the perceived image and sound… Light makes things visible. The screen becomes an object. Objects hold space boundaries. Boundaries form worlds. Worlds are alive. Passion. Seeing, perceiving, crying, groaning, weeping, eating, screaming, whispering. A collective of active organisms, caught in the boundaries of the balloon. looking inside, responded by an outside gaze.

Vergroot

Naked Tank - Naked Tank, 2007 
5 alternate DVD projections onto balloons loop on DVD, sound 4:08 min Installation view at Station 15, Kassel Photo: Michael Zitzmann

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfyJuYK6wYU

The balloon is the container of sentiments and platform of presentation. It is the boundary as well as the connection between the inner, emotional world, and the outer world. Presenting this inner worlds with their vulnerability and accepting insights can be painful but also a possibility for new access in different types of relations up to the point of new passions.

The balloon and its global form is predestinated to underline this contrast by it’s geometrical form. – caught in borders of the volume in contrast with its boundless surface. Connected with the video projection on its face comes out a complex mirror of human situation in society and human life. Is each balloon a human being? Or the emotion of a person? Or several feelings of a person? Emotions that are mixed up?

Are we caught in our emotions or caught in society's allegations, caught in the limits of our personal perceptions and experiences, imprisoned in our thoughts, incapable of showing who we really are? Or is natural openness the access to pure life with all its advantage and disadvantages? Supporting the video works, the sound again is a zoom into what seems to be everyday sounds. The sound of a kiss recorded and reproduced with the zoom of the images seems abstract, surreal. Why is it so surreal to zoom into our sentimental life? Are we all emotionally mutilated creatures? Are emotions obscene? Is it because we want to avoid our vulnerability?

Why are these feelings looped? Do they return again and again? Isn't it possible to break out of emotional misery? Or do we have it programmed inside us? Maybe we can learn emotions and get back to it, use our experience and gain empathy…. and gain access to a world where emotions are evident, undisguised…