what it is and what it does, 2019 / site-specific installation / Kunstraum Potsdamer Platz / flashlight, door, gap, ramp, ledge, aluminum, stepper motors, microcontroller, wheel, wires / duration: 30 min, loop

A machine re-enacts my prior exploration through this space with a flashlight: In the rearmost part of a large windowless room, the visitor first encounters pitch darkness and then approaches a defined cubical space with a ramp rising towards a heavy door. Through the gap between the door and the floor, a thin beam of light hits the sidewall and crawls towards the viewer like a slowly advancing spear. On the backside of the door, there is a motorized wheel that moves in a half-circle. Its path is pro- grammed so that a LED light mounted on it throws a beam of light through the door’s gap to the other side. Hesitantly, the beam approaches a point where the wall sits back a few centimeters over a vertical edge. When it finally reaches and crosses it, its tip appears to be breaking. As in shock by its experience, it abruptly crawls back below the crack of the door. Because of the precise choreography of its movement, the light beam suggests an aliveness that enables an empathic relationship between spectator and object.