Conceived
specifically for the gallery space of the Austrian Embassy in Berlin,
Bernhard Gal’s intermedia installation Die
Grüne Hölle (Green Hell)
ironically refers to the »staged
media spectacle» of the 2006 football World Cup. Visitors are requested
to wear masks which serve as
green light filters. The installation unifies
visual and acoustic elements from the world of football - modified sound
recordings of football broadcasts
and fan chants - with reduced visual
elements from the (media) cosmos of football. The curve of a football
stadium is imitated in the u-shaped
layout of the gallery acoustically
and visually, ‘battle calls’, chants and cheers are integrated in a concentrated
sound composition within a
green coloured listening environment. The result
is a subtle, yet intense sound experience, far from the massiveness of
the original materials.
Finally, in the darkened back section of the gallery,
a video installation detaches the ubiquitous impositions of mass media
from all
messages and manipulations, what remains is the blank flickering
of a tv monitor which can only be viewed indirectly.
Die Grüne Hölle
masks,
transparent plastic bowls, water, grass, CDRs, grass carpets, tv monitor,
DVD player, CD players, loudspeakers
Design
of masks: Nanna Neudeck .|.
Technical
construction: Götz Dihlmann
Many thanks to: Ingrid Beirer, and to Hartmut, Ismet and Stephan
In cooperation with the Festival Sonambiente
Berlin 2006.
Supported by:
..Austrian
Cultural Forum, Berlin ..|..
DAAD
Artists-in-Residence Programme Berlin
Further Presentations
COMING UP: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, May 26 - September 14, 2020
Part of the group exhibition "AUDIOSPHERE: Social Experimental Audio, Pre- and Post-Internet" (audio contribution).
Kunstverein Alte Schmiede in Vienna, June 2008
(revised concert installation relating to the European Football Championship 2008)
Die Grüne Hölle has been featured in Gal's book & DVD video Zwischenbrücken, edition sp ce | Gromoga, Austria 2015. |