'Conference table'
2003
Voices, amplified by microphones, cause the conference table to move. The pigment on the tabletop, which initially is neatly divided into three colors, also starts to vibrate and to shift. Behind the table, there is a representation of a monstrous tongue. When you look at the work, an infernal machine seems to be in action, which affects all senses. It is sculptural (the table), kinetic (the vibrations), sensual (the colorful pigments and the tongue) auditive and manipulative because the voice-over can be performed by the viewers. Do the table and the microphones induce the visitors to raise their voice – which causes vibrations so that everything starts moving – or is it the picture of the tongue which entices into producing sound and causing earthquakes? Or is it language itself, which materializes and dominates everything? With Yugoslavian tragedy in mind, the work seems to become obvious. But is this really true? Do the contrasting pigments on the table induce violence? The louder the voice, the more vigorous the movement, it can only be stopped by another voice which shouts down the first one. Is it then perhaps the threatening noise of propaganda and demagogy, driven by blind ambition and personal power madness, which sets the masses into motion? What is decided at the conference table? Are war plans being concocted or is it a peace conference? Or are they all just appearances? Who is manipulating who? Once the voices start to talk, a blind dynamism seems to burst out which cannot be stopped. The sound can become even more threatening and evolve into a climax. No initial reasons can be clearly indicated and the result is even less obvious. The tragedy of history is externalized in an obsessive way in this conference, with the ingredients nationalism, territorial lust for power and absurd coincidence. The work emphatically refers to a dramatic political context from a recent past. But the reference as such is very fortuitous. Imagination and reality overlap.
By Oliver Brams