Still Life


'Bernd Kracke Bernd Kracke

"Still Life" presents a figure, "MEDIA MAN", characterized as an non-individual whose undivided attention is fixed to a TV set. This limiting spell of the TV set as an electronic window to the world, manifests itself by a shaft of light connecting the figure's head with the ground glass. Similar to old photo-cameras, the shaft of light is represented as an elastic bellows, enabling the figure to carry out different positions and motions with a view to the TV set.

The viewers do not see directly what MEDIA MAN sees on his screen. They only perceive constant changes of light within the shaft which allows the conclusion that the TV set is in action. Besides, they perceive embossed pictorial material in the figure's environment, showing alienated TVimages: it is possible that those are the images which the figure sees in the light shaft. "To throw stones into the continuous stream of images which are produced daily by the electronic information media, and permit imagination to spread like the circular lines of refraction caused by obstacles thrown into the stream: Imagination, dreams, vision, utopia, reality … Still Life.