INTERVENTION

During a 12-hour performance night in the off-space „Tiefgarage“, Bergernissen installed a 16mm projector displaying empty, unexposed film, so that the events in the room were projected, like the shadows cast before a fire in a cave, onto the window pane. The illusion of film, created live, could be experienced from the outside. Besides the allegory of the cave, the work refers to Nam June Paik’s 1964 performance and installation piece „Zen for film“, in which he stood in front of the running projector himself while an endless loop of unexposed film was running through the projector. Besides making the viewer’s shape and movement become part of the performance, a film—devoid of images— according to Cage, opens itself up to the nuances of its surrounding environment, the possibility of being aware of much within the limits of the little “and what you see is the dust that has collected on the film.”