Dystopia I & II

Video / 8 min / Full HD / Stereo / 2013
DISTOPIA is a process-oriented work series which discusses urban space and its meaning for human affairs. I grew up in an industrialized apartment block. This personal experience is my motivation to investigate concepts of town planning and reveals feelings of living in those. The series includes one video work (DYSTOPIA I) that reveals an utopian urban situation where there are no more humans. Nature reclaims its space. Architecture is present but the sound of silence even more. The sound design has no original sound from the takes. Just artifical sounds that were placed in post-production and spread a very chilling atmosphere. DYSTOPIA II is a photo series which shows extreme perspectives and views from a highrise building in Berlin Marzahn.

1) DISTOPIA I, video still. Extreme perspectives belong to the live experience of living in a apartment block. The level of intimacy depends on your own inhibition threshold and the demarcation to the neighbor.

2) DISTOPIA II, photographies. A part of East Berlin from 1949, Marzahn remained a rural site until from 1977 vast housing estates were built on its fields by order of the East German authorities. The construction, carried out in the typical plattenbau style, dragged on until the late 1980s. The photo series DISTOPIA II was exhibited in Marzahn at Galerie M in 2016.

3) DISTOPIA I, video still. The deconstruction of the urban space of a mega city takes place by the usage of foley sounds. Pure and innocent nature sound becomes one with industrial image and gives a surreal twist.