Camera Silens – Dead Apparatus

mixed media Klaus E. Dietl and Stephanie Müller media: acrylic colour and oil on canvas, textiles, wadding, sound modules, cable strands measurements: 1,85 m x 1,50 m (painting), 2,50 m x 2,00 m (textile sound objects installed on the floor)

The painting Camera Silens – Dead Apparatus refers to Guy Debord's "Society of the Spectacle" (1967). All protagonists are reduced to an enumeration of grotesque, disembodied faces which struggle with each other for the viewer's attention.

There is no real connection between foreground and background. The portraits on the canvas are isolated from each other and thus completely out of sync. In a figurative sense there is no interaction possible. The visualization of this communication breakdown is strengthened by a series of head-shaped pillows lying on the floor in front of the painting. When pushed a sound installation is activated and the blurry portraits start to speak and cut each other short. Everyone just seems to be interested in exposing her or his own sunny side. Critical and inquiring feedback is little-practiced. This scenario reminds of Jeff Noon's "dub mirror". As described in his bestseller "Vurt" (1996) this mirror is just able to show the sunny side of its vis-à-vis.