unfobox

Wearing the format of the 'information kiosk' as a veil, the unfobox examines breaks in the signal of information as a moment of crisis within communicative systems. Drawing upon the protocols of cinema, television, advertising and tourism, it attempts to produce a series of pauses, stoppages, and interruptions within the material and mental movements these protocols imply, frustrating the expectations they hold forth.

Operating as an establishing shot for the work, the lightbox image situated within the entry foyer draws upon the codes of advertising and publicity to signal the spectacular. "See The City of Tomorrow, Today" it promises, presenting what appears to be a map detailing the reconstruction program for contemporary Berlin. This primary signal is interrupted by the superimposition of Albert Speer's 1942 plan for the reconstruction of Berlin as the capital of Nazi Germany. Across the spatial territory delineated by these two maps, a series of locations are indexed by the unfobox icon, positing these points of interest as conduits between these two points in time. The temporal syntax of the map as plan, as projection of the city of tomorrow, is ruptured in favor of a mapping of institutional power as implemented through urban planning. Framing an interval of time, that between the aspirations of the third reich and that of contemporary Germany, the map projects a discursive space within which the issues of institutional power are recast in terms of the historical cycle.

Moving past the foyer and upon entry into the installation's 'interior', one encounters two curving projection screens opposing each other. The architecture of the screens suggests a movement within the space of the room which is countered by the presence of moving images upon the screens. Which is to say, the screens ask one to circulate around them, the moving images ask one to pause, to remain in place. The surface of the screens moves from concave to convex as they descend downward from above, both establishing and dispersing two focal points within the room. The projected image, shot in cinematic widescreen format, is deformed by the curvature of the screen, presenting an image caught between the formal language of the television screen and the automobile windshield. The projectors, placed on the floor, establish two projective fields which are intermittently interrupted as people move through the space of the room, their shadows commingling with the images on the screens.

One screen receives a video projection of a series of sites within contemporary Berlin: sites of construction, vacancy, and ruin. Drawing upon the protocols of the postcard image and the travel video, they signal forms of cultural tourism embedded within contemporary technologies. Within the projected images of these sites, movement is constrained to a minimum. At times, only the association of the soundtrack with the image signals the presence of time passing, extending the expectation of the narrative event. There is what you see and there is what you have to imagine. There is life passing in front of the camera, but it appears the camera is not looking at that in particular. There is the architectural event that the camera focuses on (a construction site, a vacant building, an expanse of open land) but that seems, in it's stillness, to be somewhere else. There is no there there, but it's huge. We are waiting for something to happen, but exactly what that is we're not quite sure.

The opposing screen receives a video projection of a series of six people apparently being interviewed, signalling the exchange of information via spoken dialogue. But as time passes, the sentences break down. One thought trails off and we are confronted with an extended pause as the person before us searches for what to say next. The questions to which they are supposedly responding are never heard. The subject of the conversation is elided by the interval between two utterances. We sense it's Berlin, but exactly what is said about it remains out of frame. In its place we witness a series of pauses.

The film/video library becomes both epilogue and prologue to the work, encountered as the last element of the installation while at the same time providing a point of re-entry into the work. A selection of filmic 'portraits' of the city shot roughly coincident with the period framed by the initial lightbox map, the films present a historical dialogue between the city and it's image as evidenced by cinema. As a collection, they articulate some of the complexities of the city's history, forestalling the grand narratives presented by theories of both the historical cycle and the naturalism of nations. They speak to each other across time, producing a discursive space within which both the subtle congruities as well as the harsh discontinuities engendering the city are repositioned within the unfolding present of contemporary Berlin.