Converging Parallels, 2022
Video, disassembled projector, PC fan, power supplies, aluminum profiles, mirror on string
exhibition views: Down The Rabbit Hole, KIT - Kunst im Tunnel, Düsseldorf
At the end of KIT, where the two side walls meet in a vertical constriction, Swinda Oelke‘s converging parallels is placed. The video installation shows footage of tunnel passages filmed from a car. The tunnels and streets surrounding KIT to the left and right can be seen. The work directs the viewer‘s gaze out of the exhibition space into the exterior thereby making the surrounding infrastructure, in particular the exterior architecture of the exhibition tunnel, visible and allowing the visitor:inside to re-locate themselves. Furthermore, the work addresses the tunnel as a non-place. While essential for Düsseldorf‘s traffic structure, the tunnels are hidden underground. Only accessible by car, they elude immediate perception; they seem like bare elements. Swinda Oelke again takes up the negotiation of interiority and exteriority with the modification of the beamer, more precisely by removing its shell.
Actually inaccessible to humans, the function of the tunnel - a means of rapid locomotion - is juxtaposed with the visitors‘ dwelling in the exhibition. This is paralleled by the installation as an interactive system: The videos are projected onto a dangling mirror and thus move along the walls. In doing so, they accelerate and decelerate in an unpredictable pattern. This movement, however, is generated solely by air circulation in the room, which in turn depends on the presence or absence of visitors. Amplified by the rushing sound of the street, the massive concrete walls adopt a kind of ephemeral transparency. converging parallels thus creates a temporary border space between inside and outside, visible and invisible.
Text: Hannah Niemeier
