Glanz und Feuer
1989
Sparkle and Fire (Glanz und Feuer)
Light and video installation with 5 to 10 monitors, 5 players, 5 films, 5 slide projectors
Monitors stand on the ground in a light semicircle, on the Ornamenta 1989 in steles, right next to each other and opposite
Length per movie: 10:12 min.
Music: Brian Eno
Camera: Stephan Simon
Performance and Assistance: Dietlinde Stroh
Heart object: Rolf Engel
Thanks to: Fee Podgurski, Ursula Jordan, Deutsche Edelsteingesellschaft, Ruppenthal KG
Production: 235media Cologne
Means of payment for the journey to the afterlife.
“SPARKLE & FIRE is a five monitor installation which employs alchemic imagery, some parts easily identifiable, others deeply mysterious. Combined with Brian Eno’s distinctive soundtrack, SPARKLE & FIRE constitutes a shimmering spectacle.”
Camden Art Center, London 1990
“The German artist Maria Vedder produced one of the highlights of the show. Sparkle and Fire was a five channel installation displayed on five floor level monitors forming an arc, projecting outwards to the viewer, in a large corner of the space. Behind the monitors, slide projectors described planes and lines with light slicing through the dimness. On the screens a continuous movement was created from right to left by the incredibly precise choreography under- taken during the shooting of the work. Every frame was always slowly becoming something else as its contents moved across the screen. A collage of feathers and smoke drifted, as the camera tracked, and became a jet of dust moving sidewards across first one monitor and then its neighbour and then its neighbour and so-on. When you looked back to the first monitors the process was repeated with another collection of objects or shimmering presences. Truly stunning and apparently seamless, the work was hypnotic, a real tour de force by one of Europe’s premier video artists. The ambient soundtrack, by Brian Eno echoed the visual properties of the work.”
Stephen Partridge, in: Variant issue 9 1991, about “Video Positive” in Tate Gallery Liverpool 1991
