21.17
How to Relate. Calls of the tawny owls. 2021
Fibre cement, colour
175 x 305 x 150cm
The distinction between time-based media and non-time-based media, i.e. those that are at home in simultaneity such as painting or classical sculpture, was made in 1766 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing in his writing Laokoon oder über die Grenzen der Mahlerey und Poesie.
Time-based media guide the viewer through the action in a temporal sequence. These include music, film, literature and theatre. Usually the viewer sits quietly and watches or listens.
In the so-called simultaneous media such as painting or classical sculpture, the entire content lies open, equally weighted, and it is up to the viewer to set his body and his gaze – or his hearing – in motion in order to be able to experience the works in their complexity in time.
The work How to Relate. Calls of the tawny owls refers to sounds that have long since faded away. By freezing these sounds and by spatially re-relating these sound recordings, a classical sculpture is created in the sense of Lessing, which shows a body of sound, but which can be brought to life again through the active perception of the viewer. One can no longer hear the sounds, but visually a spatial event can be experienced in the moving perception, which perhaps tells of the tawny owl calls.