“Videoinstallation”

woodcut on white socket

4 items:  40 x 40 x 40 cm

two items’ view 

Where is our need for physical contact, as physical, partly material beings?

In 1998 I came to Berlin to finish my studies at the UdK (at that time still “Hochschule der Künste”). I came from Bilbao and was enthusiastic about Berlin, about a city that showed me modernism in all its glory. The art world was bubbling over with technology, a large number of works of art were equipped with highly specialized electronics and computer technology at that time, Art & Technology was the motto, it was even the name of a club in Berlin-Mitte. I wanted to be a part of it too and began to get involved with this technological world.

At the turn of the century, we had organised the largest exhibition of my life. It was the eagerly awaited year 2000, the Internet had really started, the “dot-com-euphoria” was born, everyone wanted to have an Internet presence, everyone wanted to have something to do with the virtual world; including me. Well, when I started to work, I found an emptiness in so many art works, which wanted to be replaced by the excellent technology, but it didn’t succeed. That made me want to make a connection with that technology and that possible emptiness.

This is how the “VIDEOINSTALLATION” came about – a title suggested by Professor Heinz Emigholz, which I immediately found very suitable. The title is a generic word, a reference to a kind of artwork, which is metaphorically addressed. A video installation that is not about a construction of electronic and computer components, but about the form itself, which interprets this construction itself. Therefore, ironically, one does not find an actual video installation, but 4 monitors, carved in wood on 4 white pedestals. One of the monitors was stolen from my studio in 2001, and so the “VIDEOINSTALLATION” was disassembled into 3 individual parts. In the year 2020 they carry the ticker of the time stoically as single unique pieces.

Exhibited at Parallelmontage II, Berlin-Hamburg, and named in the newspapers Tagesspiegel und Berliner Morgenpostalso it was also shown at the largest computer expo in Europe: CeBit  -Hannover- by the firm UU-Net .

Hugo Stuber, June 2020