Eternal Summer, 2000
"Eternal Summer" is a site-specific, 4 screen installation commissioned
for the waiting room of the Ebner, Stolz & Partners corporate office at the recently opened Kronencarre
building in Stuttgart, Germany.
The concept of the installation in the waiting room is to provide customers
changing visual scenes that would stimulate thoughts of summer memories and chance encounters.
Each of the four screens cycle through 11 different nature sequences videotaped during the summer
of 2000 in the southern French countryside. They are handled technically not unlike "samples" found
in techno and other pop music to create a sense of rhythmic and repetitive action. They replay at
varying rates, and show their artifice through back and forth cycling.
In conjunction with the moving images, short texts appear superimposed on the
images at random moments. These texts come from personals (kontakte) and stocks news collected from
American and European cultural regions such San Francisco, Los Angeles, Stuttgart, Berlin, and the
internet. The function of these texts is to provide unexpected references to social encounters and
business situations in the manner of "fortune cookies"; to stimulate alternative forms of reflection
about everyday situations. There is in addition, the reflection on the nature of chance encounter
language: how we describe ourselves and our desires and how we communicate with each other.
In addition to the preselected material, there is the expectation that members of the office
will contribute their own texts which will join the body of messages randomly cycling through
during the day.
Installation
4 plasma screens, 4 pc computers, cable and proprietary software
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