IN VOLKER EICHELMANN’S COLLABO...
In Volker Eichelmann’s collaboration with Roland Rust, he looks at instances of fortification from a variet of perspectives, historical, psycho- and sociological, military and subjective. At Union Projects they exhibited a series of works which have developed over the last two years under the title 'Camouflage'. 'Camouflage' exists as a number of discrete video pieces and photographs which are re-assembled as one projection and five monitors. Theinstallation is only one instalment of Eichelmann / Rust's on-going project which can - like modular furniture - be set up into entirely different scenarios.
“Docklands Trilogy”
A recurring focus of Eichelmann / Rust's installation is the architecture
and lay-out of London's Docklands. This corporate peninsula becomes emblematic of latter day fortification. A trio of videos features key texts on concepts of fortification, from 19th century French architect and theorist Viollet-Le-Duc to an extract of Machiavelli's 'The Prince' and Sigmund Freud's elaborations on the psychological mechanisms of defence formulated in his seminal essay 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle'. The texts are combined with video sequences filmed on the Docklands Light Railway, a walk around the perimeter of the Isle of Dogs and a 'contact improvisation' dance act performed within the monitored confines of Canary Wharf.
“Before the Future”, “After all”
Another key feature of 'Camouflage' is the role of new technologies in their advancement of real yet immaterial fortifications. The work provides a detour through the effects of digitalisation and visits crucial sites of the implementation of surveillance technologies on a global scale. As the architecture of these installations bears no intelligible link to its function the viewer is left to wonder at the geodesic design of Menwith Hill's radomes and the pyramid-cum-space station lay-out of Fylingdales; contemporary military installations that in their eccentricities mirror early 19th Century Martello Towers or the pagodas and tumuli erected during the 2nd World War on Orford Ness, a site famously visited by W.G. Sebald on his ramblings in 'The Rings of Saturn'.
Ethan, Eichelmann / Rust's alter-ego of sorts functions as tour guide for
this journey through times, ideas and histories. Originally a figure in Douglas Coupland's mid-nineties novel 'Microserfs' Ethan becomes a fictional anchor who fuses analysis with subjective narrative. Slightly nerdy and hooked on anti-depressants Ethan, referring to Chess, informs us that 'In order to learn how to play, you have to play. Analogies are just part of the truth.
They give you an idea. In the end you have to get in touch with things.'
Eichelmann / Rust's work is analogous to solving chess puzzles; their
project is a constant re-arrangement of pieces which depending on the opening will attempt to solve a problem that finally, by its very nature cannot be solved but only circumvented in endless loops.