Jens Brand
Stille – Landschaft /silence/silent—landscape
Video installation
2002
The piece consists of two parts: a video and its presentation in a screening room. The video shows a 360-degree hand camera pan lasting 1:42 minutes across the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in Botswana. The camera movement provides a glimpse of the desert and the external microphone which the artist had installed there. The video shows a place where there are no sounds and where consequently nothing can be heard. The video’s images and soundtrack document the silence. The closing credits following the sequence comprising the usual thanks and names last exactly as long as the video itself, but it is not accompanied by a soundtrack.
The video is projected in an especially constructed sound-proof, non-rever-berating anechoic chamber. The room may be accessed by only one person at a time. The chamber contains a screen, two loudspeakers, a chair and a footswitch with which the film can be started. The room’s very particular acoustic situation enables the viewer to perceive the difference between the recorded silence and the actual absence of sound within the space. The disproportionately long end titles allow the viewer to experience the difference between extreme silence and no sound.
Realized with generous support of the following institutions and organizations: North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry for Urban Construction and Homes, Culture and Sport, the North Rhine-Westphalian Kunststiftung, the North Rhine-Westphalian Film Office, the Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Westfälischen Kulturarbeit, the Hartware MedienKunstVerein Dortmund, Maerz-Musik as well as the companies Metzeler, Schaum and soundblocker.