Wishing Well
Katarina Matiasek Scanner
Klangturm St Poelten Austria
17 June – 19 July 1998
Sehnsucht Nach Utopie Weisbaden Germany 2000
Winner First Prize Neptune Water Prize 2002
This project was conceived particularly for this unusual location, a newly built huge tower purpose built for exhibiting contemporary art works. On the upper level of the architectonic tower a circular shaped film projection is cast on the floor of a huge sphere which can be entered by the public. The film shows the surface of a water well that exhibits circles growing, spreading and eventually dissolving as if invisible things were thrown into the well. The walls of this only dimly lit film sphere have numerous little speakers installed that play voices of people wishing something – they are timed in a way that whispering whishes are circulating around and are imaginarily thrown into the wishing well by the observer in a visual introspection. The triggering of the voices from hidden sources is random and as such each viewer encourages and perceives a different experience of the wishing well.
Beneath this space – metaphorically under water now – very heavily abstract music is released by the entering and walking persons through sensors. They see glass walls covered with a blue night effect foil that submerge the surrounding view. A long row of inserted fresnel lenses additionally enlarges sections out of the surrounding landscape onto which the viewer projects his wishes – this time to the outside.
There is an intimacy and deceptive depth about the recordings of underwater that play with the positioning of the viewer – in a fashion it is as if they are being exhibited in an enormous kind of fish bowl where the outside watches them struggling on the inside, whilst they try to make sense of their own position captured temporarily on the inside.
