.airE

A journey along electric power lines. The camera, pointed skyward, takes them out of the context of everyday perception, reducing them to form, to line. Right from the beginning, the unadorned images seem almost abstract as they intersect the picture, and the visual planes occasionally merge. The abstraction progresses slowly until solely graphic elements are recognizable. Sound and image were created in close cooperation, and the visual lines correspond to the music, are assimilated and reflected by it. .airE can be interpreted as a study of everyday perception, though on a different level it is also an essay on abstraction. Is a concrete image abstract when removed from its context, or does this label apply only after digital alteration and reduction to basic graphic patterns?
(Barbara Pichler)


The voltmeter registers 380. Or possibly more. Overhead power lines, cables, wires, transformers. Intersections of the images, dividing lines crossing the sky.
At first, the only sound is a crackling, the electricity buzzes audibly. Then, as if coming too close to the electromagnetic field, a roaring virtually engulfs the whirring, combining with it to create a drone. Enter the energy field. Power lines and wires fray and disintegrate into individual particles, creating clouds of dust. Pixels spread across the screen like electrons in a magnetic field.
Electrosmog: In a trivial interpretation, this video could be described as a banal criticism of our hi-tech age. At the same time, standing under a high-voltage power line electrically charges the entire body. A similar kind of energy floods through the viewer when watching .airE.

(Gerald Weber)