Deutschland/Germany 2000/2001
interaktive audio-visuelle Skulptur / interactive audio-visual sculpture
Heiko Daxl & Ingeborg Fülepp

Produziert / produced by

European Media Art Festival, Osnabrück

Throw your coin into the well and make a wish!

"We do not live in a homogenous and empty space
but in a space which is charged with qualities
that could include phantasms.
It is the space of our first perceptions,
the space of our dreams, the space of our passions." Michel Foucault

Space is existential to man. He does not just live in space but is himself space and time orientated.
Man and space are permanently conected with each other.

Imagine a well where people can meet, be alone or just have a break,
but where one can also have a look at the dreams and lives of other people.
Touching the water or throwing a coin changes the images and sounds.

The well is like a window, a metaphor for looking at one´s environment
and in a figurative sense at the world.
The view from inside through the window shows details and changes,
reality and fantasy, past, present and future.
Before we had mass communication tools the wells used to be important meeting places
not only to get water but share and receive news, gossip and more.
People met at the “well before the gates”,
they threw a coin in for luck (“Fontana di Trevi” in Rome)
and could see their reflection on the surface of the the water (Narcisse).

The installation refers to the subjects mentioned above.
There are real sounds and images from our environment but also computer manipulated sequences.
The supply of images, sounds and texts is selected to give a fragmented relection of the present
and also to provide material for the construction set of the combination theory.
Different elements mix and build new abstract levels.
Like dreams or wishes, images and sounds are only vaguely recognisable,
but they create specifice emotions and and associations.

The non-linear navigation through the audio-visual sequences and the sensory interface
allows the viewer/user to either find their way, walk along it, contruct, deconstruct or abstract it.

“Can you hear the water murmuring?
Can you hear the cricket chirping?
Quiet, quiet, let us listen ...”
Clemens Brentano

Throw your coin into the well and make a wish!