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TRANS, a project from 1992 was a complex video and sound installation that weaves relationships
between two different cities: Passau/ Germany and Vancouver/ Canada.
The installation was intended as an interpretation that relates two approaches
to architecture and public space interweaved with my personal history.

 


A preliminary version of TRANS was exhibited in Passau in June 1996, while the final piece launched at the Western Front/ Vancouver in March 1997.
TRANS attempted to evoke the experience and reception of memories that are superimposed onto and condensed into a human body, the instrument for the perception of both cities.
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TRANS proposed that in order to accommodate itself to the respective architectural structures of a city, a body will move differently in each situation, which will produce different bodily reactions and thus different experiences. These experiences will in return shape a person's relationship to her/his environment. TRANS trans-lated these ideas into moving images and sounds that will engage and relate to the body of a visitor.
In tracing the physical and emotional relations between theuman body and architecture, TRANS attempted to provoke the viewer's or rather the participant' s awareness of the bodily and psychic relations between humans and architecture. The exhibition space contained two installations, each of which relates to the respective city (Vancouver or Passau). The conceptual relation between both cities was carried by interrelated, partially overlapping video and sound footage.


The installation related to Vancouver comprised a model (approx. 60x 80 cm) of the intersection of Main and Broadway. Video images from the intersection were projected onto the model.
The installation relating to Passau suggested the experience of walking through an alley. It consisted of two vertical (rear) projection screens, each approx. 2x3 m wide, positioned parallel to each other at a distance of approx. 1.5 meters. Here, the video footage consistd of slow motion fragments, shot in the alleys of Passau.


Both installations were supported by multilayered and processed sound tracks recorded at the respective locales.
TRANS allowed for specific spatial experiences of the visitor. Simply put, these are: the experience of inhabiting a mediaeval city ( Passau) seen from a pedestrian's perspective and the experience of partly hovering above as well as partly integrating oneself as a pedestrian in Vancouver.
With TRANS I attempted to increase the awareness of and sensitivity to the relations between body and architecture.