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Textfragment from the accompanying
catalogue of the solo exhibition: ‘Shared Moments’, ‘Woodstreet Galleries’,
Pittsburgh USA, Oktober 2002. Peter
Bogers’ latest video installation, Without
Words II, uses the simultaneity of scenes in a
similar manner. However, the scenes take place
independently and are not self-produced but “found footage.” The work consists of six videos, which are
seen on six TVs that differ totally in size and design. The monitors stand on a specially designed
table, which separates the monitors from the viewers. We see six people, probably newscasters or
television presenters, talking to us independently in different languages, as
if offering a personal dialogue to each visitor. We cannot follow what they say because we
either do not understand their language or what they say is drowned out by
the other “talking heads.” Every now
and then all six videos are suddenly synchronized in slow motion. In addition, the sound, i.e. the talking, is extremely slowed and barely audible.
The persons appear to be speechless for a short time. Their frozen faces amplify this
impression. Before, we could hardly
understand anything in the Babel of the six people, and now the speakers seem
strangely and eerily removed from their busy behavior. Their expressions appear to be deformed and
at the same time liberated. Even now
we do not get the sense of their messages, as we cannot even read their
lips. They come across as strange, yet
they still leave us with the impression that we are able to read between the
lines and discover something hidden. Still, nothing is revealed. After a short time the staggering is over
and the perpetual drone of TV culture is reestablished. It is a culture that does not have anything
to say, either with or without words.
Peter Bogers constantly leads our view behind the surface of the
media. He shows us that behind the
surface we do not find the reality but only one of its many media-formed
variations. The “intestines” of the
media simply do not have souls. Iris Dressler |