What happens when nothing happens, 2012
36 photographs, framed 118,6 x 89,6 cm, audio 8:54 min (loop)
Installation view, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Voice: Konstanin Bühler
In 2012, Berlin-based artist Tímea Anita Oravecz, in the process of developing a site-specific work at Kunstverein Tiergarten, was fascinated by the 86 meters of display windows in the gallery, which she saw as functioning as framed cut-outs of urban life – a reflection of the same kind of arbitrary non-events that could have just as well taken place 38 years earlier at the Place Saint-Sulpice. For her work 180° she transformed the entrance hall of the gallery into a camera obscura. The ephemeral street scenes are turned upside-down, mirrored and framed by a blurry outline. This layer of abstraction extracts the displayed moment from the constant flow of everyday life and features passers-by like actors in an old movie. In Perecs' “Attempt“, attributing meaning to the described scenes is up to the reader. In the same way, Oravecz' work leaves the observer to make their own conjectures. Through the use of cinematic staging, Oravecz' protagonists reveal new facets of personality and a peculiar grace. People one would normally pass by without noticing appear in a spot-light of sudden singularity, which makes them momentarily stand out against urban insignificance. In a second part of the installation, Oravecz has turned her camera obscura into a pinhole camera and simultaneously a dark room to develop the pictures. In so doing, she has converted the machine of observation into a recording device which can preserve those quotidian moments.
(Franziska Wegener)
