Anlandung (Liquid Souls) 2014

Video Installation at Landtag des Saarlandes (Parliament of the federal state of Saarland)

The two-part video installation is related to the specific geographical situation of the regional parliament of Saarland: the architecture and the specific location of the building directly on the river Saar. Detailed views of the classicist Landtag architecture are brought into horizontal and vertical floating movements. In combination with special body gestures, roof lines, structures of the columns at the entrance, the gutter, etc. become a kind of "driftwood" in a slowly rising and falling water level.

The outdoor projection on a window of the building is only visible at night and at dusk from the other side of the Saar River. It shows a figure raising its head and gasping for air in a repetitive movement from the rising water level.
Inside, a large monitor stands vertically in a spatial axis to a smaller one. The videos are connected by their water flow directions. They "channel" the images of the outdoor projection to the inside during the day and transform them into new body gestures that link up with the elements of the architecture in a slow rhythm.
The sound atmospherically reinforces these movements. Rhythmic and distorted water sounds, mixed with human voices can be heard. The voices act as "physical interference", seemingly interrupting or redirecting the flow. The installation generates a day-night cycle as well as an imaginary stream line that breaks through the building from the inside to the outside (and vice versa).

sound composition: Franziska Baumann
voices and actors in the videos: Franziska Baumann, Andreas Stahel, Jeannine Hirzel, Jean Claude Pellaton
text fragments of: The Cruel Redeemer Lazarus Morell of Jorge Luis Borges