Urban Interventions

INNEN STADT AUSSEN – OLAFUR ELIASSON

“City: Inside Outside”

I became obsessed with this exhibition that I saw during my term abroad in Berlin. I was fascinated with the way Eliasson brought the outside cityscape inside and how the viewer became an active part of the exhibition. I was also interested in the works of art that were put outside in the city, such as the bike with mirrored wheels. Then there was the film piece, a camera following mirrored vehicles that may have been the spark of inspiration that made me create my own film piece along the south bank where I am walking with the camera tracing lines of the skater territory. Now a year later I am creating my own installation that brings the outside in, something that I never intended as such, I was more interested in bringing art outside, but I found my inspiration came from the outside, my day to day life and my relationship with it. So it was only natural that I began to create work about this and bring it back in to the gallery. I have titled my installation ‘Accidents are meant to happen.’ this statement can obviously be related to the objects themselves but also a subtle explanation to how my work is formed.

“The mirror recurs throughout Innen Stadt Außen and turns insides into outsides and vice versa. Bicycles with oddly dematerializing mirror wheels appear across Berlin, as do mirrors in unexpected corners. In one work, a van with a very large mirror attached on one side drives slowly through the city, thereby streaming its live, ephemeral filmic portrait. The mirror introduces a surprising split-screen effect where the actual and the reflected surroundings coexist, simultaneously but differently. It brings into motion the static houses and buildings through gliding distortions. This offers not just a doubling of space, but reversed extensions of space into space, carrying the brief imprints of pedestrians, cyclists, and cars, as they make their way through the city”

http://www.innenstadtaussen.de/exhibition.html