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Text from the
catalogue: “The Second”, Time Based Art From the Netherlands Written by: Jorinde
Seijdel, art historian and publicist, Amsterdam. 1996 Heaven 1995 1
7-channel video. black & white, 11 -channel audio If
you imagined heaven, what kind of universe would you see? Is Heaven still the
exclusive dwelling place of God and the blessed and chosen few who followed
him? Is it still the same enlightened higher world? The firmament? Zenith?
Whatever heaven is, it must be an extra-ordinary place, governed by a
different, less suffocating and heavy order of space and time... Peter
Bogers' Heaven on Earth can be found in a small, empty three-roomed dwelling.
You are free to enter it and examine it more closely. There are no furniture,
nor any, perhaps divine or predestined occupants in this heavenly abode.
However, what you do encounter, scattered around the rooms, are a great many
video monitors. When you look at their black-and-white images and listen to
the accompanying sounds, you realise that, rather than randomly, they are
placed or hung very precisely and appropriately. In other words, there, where
the content of these images once was perhaps in reality, and where these
sounds truly rang out. Feet being wiped, a door moving in
the draught, a purring cat curtains moving in the wind, an infant drinking
from its mother's breast, a hand stirring a cup of coffee, a hand caressing a
body. a woman's flying hair, a double bass being played with a bow, a baby
playing... Wiping, purring. Squeaking, ticking, splashing, gurgling... Each
of them fragments and sounds of domestic life, which fill the room with
presence, but at the same time make the absence of things and life tangible. The images last no longer than a
second, and accompanied by sound, are played forward for one second and
backward for one second, in endless repetition. There is the image of a
clock, which illustrates this 'standstill'. Even though the scenes are so familiar,
they end up being disconcerting, perhaps because of their isolation or
because of this standstill which prevails. A number of images and sounds,
among which the clock, have an extra alarming effect, like signs on the wall:
a hand full of maggots, a throbbing temple, a fragment of the well-known TV
image of falling and sliding furniture in a studio during the earthquake in
Kobe... What have you got into? You feel like
an intruder who is caught up and entangled in bewildering and alienating
images and sounds. Is this heaven? Or is it science fiction? Whatever the
case, it is a mysterious place, organised by an unearthly rhythm and possessed
by a strange spirit. You have landed in a place where time stands still, or
has collapsed into a mere second. But why, and by what? Heaven could be the
moment just before a catastrophe, when things are still happening as usual,
because nothing is wrong yet. Or have you perhaps stumbled upon this
household just after something dramatic and fatal has happened? Like a
contemporary Pompeii? Is this a beginning or an end? Your timing and
calculations do not solve anything. Heaven has vanished into Heaven... JS |