about dura lux      [german]


dura lux is a project that utilizes projection technology for the development and realization of installations. We consider ourselves experimental documentary filmmakers and use only concrete photographic material that is has neither been staged nor manipulated; our desire is not the creation of new worlds, but rather the exploration of existing ones, and the attempt to transport worlds of emotion.

Our intervention lies in the selection of the photographic segment and the organization of the sequence in which the slide material is shown. Since on the one hand the motives have a documentational character, are familiar to the observer, and have a high degree of recognizability, while on the other hand the technique of animation means significant intervention, the conveyance of an emotional atmosphere occurs at the cost of the intellectual information. Thus the facades of a large city are reduced to their structure, become patterns, such that the observers feel they are standing in a ravine of urban streets but can't orient themselves spatially. This method allows us, for example, to expose the hostile, global-urban architecture of large cities by means of the emotional content. We are in search of the degree of reduction that creates broad identification; we are looking for evidence and details of the vital chaos.

With the presence of images which surround the observer and with rapidly changing photos, we make formal reference to modern forms of presentation (MTV, advertising, cyberspace). The cinematographical character of the two-image animation assists in the intensification of spatial illusions and the use of perceptional reflexes (motion as a characteristic of space and as an aspect that attracts the eye's attention). The disorientation that arises does not serve the purpose of manipulation, for example the creation of a desire to buy a product or the intent of distraction, rather it is intended as a means of reaching the observer in a non-rational fashion. The cinematographical impression emerges when the perceptional organ of the observer fills in the missing image phases within the simple animation. The filling in of these gaps with "self-made" images produces the connection to the recipient's personal worlds of experience and emotion; everybody "sees" something different. The light and material atmospheres of the situation in which the images were captured are intensively reproduced, since the slide projection makes the motive itself into the only light source in the room.

Although we deal with topics rich in conflict, such as "Nature and Technology", "Urban Living Space", "Man and Machine", the sequences do not create a dramaturgical plot or story in the classical sense. The suspense curve arises out of the display and modification of conditions and their atmospheres. We are technologically capable of influencing the tempo of the two-image alteration (pinwheel rotation), the length for which the motive is shown, and the dynamics of the sound. We have consciously chosen the almost antique medium of slide projection because of its impressively high resolution and its location in the border region between photography and film. In comparison to cinematographic filming and editing, the recording of images with photographic equipment and the arrangement of the motives are less complicated, more spontaneous, and thus more direct.

dura lux has been working in the field of multivision since 1993 and we regret that this field of photography almost exclusively serves the purpose of product presentation or the presentation of travel experiences, since in the border region between still frames and film, between projection and installation, we can find many art related issues. We are engaged by the question of meaning in virtual worlds, the degree of a possible deconcretization, or the search for the boundaries of perception. We both have finished our studies at the Arts School of Hamburg in Summer 1999 with an awarded visual arts diploma .