“I look up into the sky to ground myself”
Tuesday, 27 April 2010 11:35
Hofstetter closely observes the sky along the Tropic of Cancer by means of his "Sunpendulum", for which he installed video cameras in 12 global time zones. Today, each of the 12 cameras of his "Sunpendulum" - which has been continuously developed since 1996 - records 24 images per second, which are all posted live on the Internet.
To Hofstetter the sunlight, which reaches the earth, is perceived as a parameter for time, and the sky as the medium for the sunlight. His time-journey commenced in the Pacific region. He installed the first "Time-Eye" in Hawaii. From there the journey took him to Ensenada, New Orleans, Bermuda, the Azores, Granada, Cairo, Dubai, Kolkata, Hong Kong, Tokyo – here Hofstetter somewhat varied his route from the Tropic of Cancer – to the Marshal Islands, where the time zone destinations are connected. Hofstetter collects, archives and processes the images of these diverging sky-excerpts and utilizes them for his installations (such as the Biennial in Venice, 2009). Currently, he is finalizing a pavilion in which he will unite the twelve sky-happenings and designate the silence of the time zones as the central topic.
Upgrade! Vienna #2
Kurt Hofstetter >> Pictures >>Kurt Hofstetter
Artist
For many years, Hofstetter worked with electronic media and presented his creations in museums and public spaces across the globe. He works with Barbara Doser in the Parallel Media group. In Austria, he is best known for his project "A moment of time", which, for nearly 15 years, offered audiovisual communication in the public space at Vienna's southbound train station (Südbahnhof). Two eyes were casting time towards each other, acoustically accentuated with the sampled ticking of an Old Russian alarm clock. For the people rushing to or from the trains, the "eyes" became a station on their way. Time, measured exactly on the way to the train, was thereby subtly and automatically reflected. The installation has been relocated at the ZKM in Karlsruhe, as the Südbahnhof is currently undergoing major renovation. In Karlsruhe, the eyes are mounted above the main entrance. However, they no longer look at each other, but cast the time in parallel into the distance - from where it is also transmitted to them.
The work of Kurt Hofstetter
