A Body of Water

Inhaltliche Beschreibung

A BODY OF WATER - Waschkaue Ewald/Schlägel & Eisen II
(Paul Sermon & Andrea Zapp)

CONNECTED CITIES
Kunstprozesse im urbanen Netz

Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum Duisburg und ausgewählte Standorte der Industriekultur im Ruhrgebiet

Bergwerk Ewald/Schlägel & Eisen II Herten

20. Juni bis 1. August 1999


A Body of Water is an installation occupying three locations: Firstly a chroma-key room at the Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, secondly the coal miners changing room, or Waschkaue, at the disused Ewald/Schlägel und Eisen coalary in Herten, and thirdly the shower room at the Ewald/Schlägel und Eisen Waschkaue in Herten.

The audiences in Herten and Duisburg are connected in the following way: A video camera in Duisburg captures images of the audience standing in front of a chroma-key blue backdrop - this image is sent to Herten via an ISDN video conferencing link. The image is received in Herten and chroma-keyed together with a camera image of the audience standing in the Waschkaue changing room. The chroma-key mixed image is then video projected onto a fine wall of water, sprayed from high pressure shower heads in the Waschkaue shower room. A camera situated next to the projector captures an image of the projected image and feeds it to three monitors in the changing room space in the Waschkaue, and back via the ISDN video conferencing link to three video monitors surrounding the chroma-key space in Duisburg.

The water wall, or screen, is located in the centre of the shower room and has two different images projected onto it simultaneously from either side. The audience in the shower room are able to walk around the water screen and experience the images changing from a telematic link with Duisburg to black & white documentary footage of miners showering in the original Waschkaue. Floating independently on each side of the water wall, the two images are not mixed and appear as completely different scenarios from either side of the water screen.

This installation simply wouldn’t exist without the water interface. It transports the public interaction and at the same time it reflects the urban area of the RuhrgebietS as a network of rivers and waterways. The shower room forms the heart of the installation, all the visual and conceptual layers meet here, referring to the present changes of industrial culture in the region: On the one side the viewers are confronted by the new era, the interactive platform of networked communication - a possible future ? - yet on the other side they discover the ghostlike shadows of the past miners showering in the water - a flashback to the abandoned space and its former working culture.

The Ewald/Schlägel und Eisen coal mine in Herten, and its impressive shower and changing rooms, locally referred to as the Waschkaue, have been closed down since 1997. Over one thousand miners were using the Waschkaue daily. It was once one of the largest coal mines in Europe, employing over 7000 miners. A Body of Water is an installation that draws an analogy between the disappearance of heavy industry with the disappearance of the human body and its telepresent reappearance in the digital network.

• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 1 [JPEG | 81 KB ] [link 02]
• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 2 [JPEG | 72 KB ] [link 03]
• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 3 [JPEG | 151 KB ] [link 04]
• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 4 [JPEG | 70 KB ] [link 05]
• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 5 [JPEG | 113 KB ] [link 06]
• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 7 [JPEG | 103 KB ] [link 07]
• › body of water_waschkaue_installation_sketch 8 [JPEG | 108 KB ] [link 08]
• › body of water_installation design [JPEG | 53 KB ] [link 09]

Technische Beschreibung

PARTICULAR SKILLS AND RESOURCES NECESSARY TO REALISE THE PROJECT:
A Body of Water took approximately six months to research and develop. The majority of the prototyping and testing centred on the development of the water screen projection method, developed with technical assistance from HSK Heizung Sanitär Kniffka in Herten. Other necesary resources included access to 384 Kbit multiplexed ISDN videoconferencing equipment from The Deutsche Telecom.

Hardware / Software

Hardware and Installation Requirements

Video Conferencing:

2 x Video conference System 384 Kbit (H320)
3 x 64 Kbit ISDN line - OK Centre (6 x B Channel = 384 K)
3 x 64 Kbit ISDN line - AEC (6 x B Channel = 384 K)

Video Equipment:

3 x 3CCD Digital Video Camera
1 x Panasonic WJ-MX50 or WJ-AVE-55G Chroma-Keyer - digital video mixer
6 x 30” Video Monitor - box monitor such as Sony Trinitron
1 x DVD Player - auto repeat function
2 x LCD Video Projector - minimum of 1300 ANSI
2 x Video Distribution Amplifier - 6 output
Video cable (black) RG59, BNC-Crimpstecker, BNC/Cinch video-adapter
Tools, gafa tape, cable ties and cable canal etc.

Cables & Installation Materials:

1 x Green box wall and floor - Green Chroma-key paint 25 Ltr - (HTML #00FF00)
6 x Monitor plinth, black box, same width and depth as monitor, 100 cm high
2 x Black curtains
8 x White neon strip light with shade
2 x Video camera ceiling/wall mount
1 x Ceiling mount and security cage for video camera
2 x Ceiling mount and security cage for video projector
8 x Neon strip light with fitting - daylight temperature
Black screens at each end of shower room
Plastic piping, fittings and water supply - by water technician
High pressure water vapour shower heads and hosepiping
One technician will be required on site to assist with all video and electrical work
One water technician required on site to install water system

(Paul Sermon & Andrea Zapp)

Statement

INNOVATIVE ASPECT OF THE PROJECT AND PARTICULAR RESEARCH INTEREST:
Live video images of the gallery visitors at the “Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum” in Duisburg Germany were chroma-key mixed with images of visitors standing in the changing rooms at the nearby disused “Ewald/Schlaegel und Eisen” colliery in Herten. The video image of the combined audiences was simultaneously back projected onto a fine wall of water in the shower room, referred to locally as the “Waschkaue”, providing a third interactive space - literally by walking through and touching the projected participants in the water - who were connected by a video camera that distributed real-time images of the water screen projection to all three sites at once. The water screen itself had the advantage of working as a 10% front projection and 90% back projection, allowing us to project two separate images simultaneously from either side of the water.

REACTIONS TO AND EVALUATION OF THE PROJECT:
As the audience entered the Waschkaue space they were faced by life size projections of the public floating “live” in a pool of mist and vapour in the centre of the blacked-out shower room. Moving around towards the back of the space they were confronted again by life size images of naked coalminers (projected documentary video footage) showering just as they once did in the very same Waschkaue. In this collaborative installation with Andrea Zapp it was our intension utilise the site-specific sounds and smells of this context in order to develop and reinstate the ceremonial like camaraderie taking place amongst the showering miners in the form of “buckling” - a local coalminers term for washing the back of a fellow miner. “A Body of Water” allowed our live performing spectators to rein-act and experience this simple, yet complex act in the form an open-ended narrative.

UPDATES OR FOLLOW-UP PROJECTS?
Due to the site-specific nature of the work we have not expanded or updated the project. We have been approached to produce collaborative works based on A Body of Water but have so far been unsuccessful in securing venues and budgets.

(Paul Sermon)

Ausstellungen / Präsentationen

• Connected cities - Kunstprozesse im Urbanen Netz, Essen, 1999
  » http://www.connected-cities.de/ [link 10]
• ARS ELECTRONICA, Linz, 2000
  » http://www.aec.at/de…t.asp?iProjectID=2245 [link 11]

Sekundärliteratur

• Fleischmann, Monika; Bohn, Christian-A.; Strauss, Wolfgang, Interactive Strategies in Virtual Architecture and Art, in: Intelligent Environments; Peter Droege (ed.); Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam 1997

Referenzen

• Paul Sermon: "“Desert Rain” by the UK based media art performance group Blast Theory included similar water projection techniques."