This public space art project is based on social and technical interactivity, investigating possible conditions in our society. Activity is penalised by light switching off. In a poetic manner Zone – out of vision creates an unusual situation where states of “normality” are contradicted.

Lamps equipped with simple motion detectors are installed in a row, lighting up a sidewalk. When a person moves into the area lit and covered by the detector the light switches off. If there is no motion in the area, the light is constantly on, and it will be re-activated when a person stands still inside the zone. A person moving through the light will experience how darkness follows movement and that there is no light where the person is presently moving while all other areas are lit up.

At first glance for an external viewer the lights seem to unpredictably go on and off. Watching how movement and motionlessness triggers the lights gives a larger experience, an amplified visual image of motion, activity and non-activity of people and space.

Zone – out of vision has a simple system of rigid rules and is subject to a strict surveillance giving no room for compromise. Showing no respect for social status, Zone – out of vision places you in a hopeless Catch 22 that you have no means to alter. Through this metaphorical game Zone – out of vision simulates a situation which those in privileged and free societies may not be acquainted with but which is the daily reality for many: a denial of active existence inside a certain society.

Site
Brunnenstraße 48-50 / Corner of Bernauer Straße

Time
The installation runs from dusk till late. Gustav Hellberg will give an Artist Talk at the uib headquarters on April 19 at 7 pm where he will present Zone – out of vision and other works.

Gustav Hellberg (SE)
Gustav Hellberg was born in Stockholm in 1967. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from Royal University College, Stockholm. He was an Erasmus student at Hochschule der Künste Berlin in 1995. The focus of Hellberg’s artistic practice lies in the public sphere, where he looks for interactions between people, artwork and public space. The project Blinka Malmö stadsbibliotek drew a lot of attention when Hellberg made the Malmö City Library’s inner lighting flash during its closing hours. Other major public space interventions have been made in Momentum 4, with the work One Solution, Pulsing Path – ambiguous vision at Madrid Abierto, Guide at Umedalen Skulptur and Zone – out of vision in Article, Stavanger, Norway.

Photo: Daniela Friebel

Hosts:
Ekkehard Wiedemann, Jörg and Thomas Gommert

Thanks to the Swedish Embassy.