"Speed transforms seeing into raw material, with increased acceleration travelling becomes film: it does not produce pictures, rather unbelievable and supernatural memory tracks. " This text, taken from Paul Virilios? book "The Aesthetics of Disappearing" (Berlin 1986, P. 67), can be considered a guideline to the travel series by Appelt.

Appelt has installed her camera, since 1996, on the trains from Napoli -Rom; Vienna - Graz and Herne ? Vanne- Eickel train stations, the camera?s objective films the moving landscape through an open window. We have all, consciously or unconsciously, experienced the flood of pictures created while express trains race through cities and landscapes. The camera?s objective is focused on a fixed distance, creating the images experienced in this video: the objects zipping by in the foreground have almost no chance at being detected.


If we ourselves sat in the train, we could move our head, and refocus our eyes on a tree or a sign, for example, and recall this in our cognitive memory, thus the analysis of the racing stimuli that we see can be successful. If the images in the foreground do not ripped apart the complete image in Appelts work, landscapes and buildings in the background can be recognized. This incalculability of chopping, smearing and mixing of the picture builds suspense, which is increased by the high-density events. Our "remember remote system? operates at full speed and pain thresholds of our vision is soon exceeded. Perception is repeatedly detached from a mental context and creative structures surface, becoming pictorial, and innumerable layers opened, reality is emptied and clarity is resolved. (Suess)

Exhibitions

sincerely yours, 1998

Sofia Municipal Gallery, Sofia, Bulgaria

TED Gallery, Varna, Bulgaria

Specifications

4min 20sec color/bw PAL

Technical protocol

Hi 8 (recording); Media 100 (postproduction); Beta SP (master)

Post production

Zone, Wien

Sponsorship

Bundeskuratorin für Kunst Lioba Reddecker

Edition

Basis Wien

Copyright

Siegrun Appelt

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