Instanz, 2023
Apparatus, five-channel video installation, sound
212 x 107 x 107 cm
Steel, wood panels, aluminium mesh, acoustic foam panels, five 27″ screens, Mac Mini, three Raspberry Pi cameras V3 NoIR, speakers, magnetic sensor, Arduino controller, two 940nm infrared lights, two motion-tracking surveillance cameras

The interactive audio-video installation „Instanz“ embodies, in reference to Foucault’s „dispositif“ theory, a system that consciously exercises power and control over an audience. It conceives of the photographic apparatus as a tool that can be intentionally used to harm subjects.

„Instanz“ consists of a steel structure with five screens and three hidden infrared cameras inside, as well as two external surveillance cameras. The exterior appearance is inspired by the aesthetics of soundproof walls, while the interior was built as a dark, soundproof and thus isolated space. 

Once the door is closed, visitors are confronted with an unexpected sequence of live broadcasts of their own surveillance footage, lighting effects, and immersive sound recordings.

The three hidden cameras are strategically placed. One directly on the screen above visitors‘ heads in a bird’s-eye view inspired by „downblousing,“ one in a voyeuristic under-view inspired by „upskirting,“ and one in a side-view inspired by „mugshots“. Similar to a „panopticon“, visitors have no control over if and when they are being observed.

Droning bell sounds, memorials recorded at the concentration camp memorial in Dachau, distorted sound recordings of earlier performances and an asthma-like soundscape of her own breathing appear. The sound explores the space of the inner space, revealing the entanglements between individual experience and collective trauma.

Through the purposeful staging of deprivation, viewers are invited on a cognitively and emotionally journey. The resulting participatory art expands the boundaries of perception and illuminates with aesthetic and philosophical curiosity the ambivalences in the polarizing relationship between man and machine, body and camera.