Danger, hunt, trophy
The object on the car roof is recognizable virtual and a digital alteration of the photograph. Because of the position of the object however it now appears like a trophy like it can occasionally be seen on loaded cars on homeward journeys when antlers or a piece of furniture was acquired at the vacation spot. In such cases it is about pseudo-booty of a hunt that does no longer have to truly take place when things become trite. The trophy in Wilting's work is virtual but reminds still about the beginnings if driving like they can be seen on the marble reliefs6 with presentations of Assyrian kings hunting lions, who exercised carriage riding and hunting as royal privi- leges. After almost 3000 years these schemes of hunting and trophy gathering have become the logo of a daily activity and of money-making. The object that Wilting has applied to the car roof alludes even esthetically to hunting by the blood-red colour and it's similarity to a blood clod. Wilting digitally altered the film that runs in the exhibition and has the same title with a thing that is similar to the object which is visible in the invitation on the roof of the car parked at the road side. Just before the end of the film he object, rotating around its longitudinal axis, comes flying towards the viewer who is sitting in that car from which the highway ride is filmed through the windshield. It could be a flying object that bumps onto the windshield but in the slowness of its rotation it appears not synchronal with the driven speed of the vehicle and thus physically unreal. Still it reminds us of insects or birds bumping onto the windshield occasionall. But it does not truly adhere because seeminly it belongs to a different level of existence. It has to do with the imaginations which happen during a car ride. Possibly they may go as a kind of sublime trophy which cannot be repressed in a trance-like or equivalent constitution. Not having to be sensed as a threat such phantasy objects may be deemed for an artist no less as 'trophy' or 'crop of a journey'. Wilting carries these objects within himself in order to realize them as 'Echtzeitplastiken' after his drives, as if these virtual objects were only waiting to be called upon and pictured. |
4. EchtzeitPlastiken of the day's form During the opening of the exhibition the development of forms generated by Wilting life with a 3-D-program were projected and parallelized with the videos that show him at the steering wheel with little movements and depict various views out of his staff car riding on the high way. This juxtaposition offers a view of the external conditions under which the forms develop that actively take shape in front of the eyes of the vernissage visitors. Wilting says the forms that he creates with mouse and touch-pad are depending on the form of the day. Of course this is this effectively the form of the day at the moment when the data material at the PC is used. But as reference the video also offers the monotony of the speeding along on the high way; because when it is a normal day without traffic jam trance arises after a short time. The artist as professional driver sits in a comfortable driver's seat in a vehicle air-conditioned according to his own wishes. Stepping on the gas pedal is redundant due to a cruise control so that only steering, breaking, indicating and depending on the weather once in a while also window wiping is necessary if this has not been taken over by a rain and splash water censor. This could be a state of wishing a Philobat7 seeks, a person who feels most comfortable when he/she is on route and surrenders him/herself to the No-where. This routine requires the necessary amount of attentiveness even when the route is well-known and the situations are predictable, but the gruelling with it is the necessity to be prepared for sudden contingencies by which the brain then is activated and able to react within milli-seconds. This causes complete relaxation, immersion in thoughts and concentrated contemplation to be impossible. The consciousness about possible vicissitudes appears suddenly at the end of the video in the form of an object that grows out of a vanishing point, and it's a question of an ECHTZEIT- PLASTIK that flies to the windshield becoming larger. |
6
Made around the 8th century before our time and some of
these are
exhibited in the Pergamon museum in Berlin and also in
the British
Museum in London. |
7 The description of Philobat by Michael Balint renders the basic pattern with that the behaviour of travelling people has been characterized. (Thrills and Regression", 1959) I regard his approach still today for adequate and feasible because he tries to define the implications of travelling and the reactions to bleakness and boredom. The behaviour patterns are yet differentiable even though the division into two basic types are rather crude: for PHILOBATS driving means relaxation because the familiar surroundings and by that the irritating hurdles of daily life are left behind, whereas the OKNOPHILES become unsettled by distance from home and familiarity. |
The 1th. exhibition in HYBRID EINSTELLUNGSRAUM e.V. | more
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Supported by the department for culture, sports and media of Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg and district office Wandsbek |