Voyeurs I, upper part
For my exhibition "life-size" at the Gabriele Rivet gallery in Cologne from May 5 - June 10, 2000, I developed three new video pieces for the gallery's bathroom, which is off to the side of the main gallery space. The pieces were entitled: "Badewonne" (Pleasure Bath), "Eine Hand wäscht die andere" (One Hand Washes the Other), and "Spanner I, oben" (Voyeurs I, upper part).
The window, which provides a view into the gallery space from the bathroom (and vice versa), served as the projection surface for "Spanner I, oben". The video projector was mounted in the exhibition space and projected the life-size images of the upper bodies of 11 people onto the glass, which was covered with a matte projection film. The window was rather high, and thus only a little bit of the shorter people could be seen. They seemed to try and get a better look by jumping up or by using a ladder. The visitor entering the bathroom saw the virtual gawkers across the space. Like the visitors, they were amused by what they saw and seemed to indiscreetly follow what was going on: the woman lying in the bathtub, the manic hands as they washed themselves in the sink, and the visitor himself or herself. Their conversations and comments penetrated through the glass only as mumbled words or sentence fragments. Real and virtual gazes crossed. Who was watching whom?
Actors: Gerd deHond, Philipp Heidkamp, Ewald Hentze, Sebastian Jochum, David Larcher, Hans Ulrich Reck, Uwe Rüth, Susanne Seuffert, Ivar Smedstad, Yvonne Spielmann, Iris Utikal