Peeping
The six windows at Galerie Brigitte Schenk in Cologne on Hohenzollernring became projection surfaces from 7 - 9 April 1995 between 9 pm and 2 am. They could be viewed from outside only. Inside the gallery, 6 VHS players and 6 video projectors projected the videos on to windows covered with a thin plastic. Window scenes. 4 women and 2 men appeared to inhabit the house. They talked on the phone, ate, read, danced, changed their clothes, stretched out, looked out the window, received visitors, washed windows, hung blinds, closed curtains etc... whatever is usually done at the window. There wasn't always something going on in all windows at the same time. The videos played in turn. Each run lasted about 30 minutes and was always on repeat. The time difference for rewinding each tape made no one window sequence like the other. New combinations were always being made.
A work on the voyeur’s gaze, on the desire to look in someone else’s window and secretly watch other people who think they are not being observed. A distant close-up. The window as insight, as an opening to the inside, to the private sphere. A "show" being put on, turning chance passers-by into spectators, into voyeurs. The window as a projection surface - also in the psychological sense.
Produced at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne
"Peeping" was on view in 1996 in the World Wide Video Festival’s office windows in The Hague and 1999 in Landshut, a smaller town in Bavaria.
Actors: Cornelia Gerecke, Kirsten Glauner, Markus Käch, Christian Weckerle, Ivar Smedstad, Suzi Zimmermann, Martin Ofori, Barbara Mattes, Ferdinand Lechtreck. Active Helpers: Klaus Gasteier, Roswitha Berger, Arne Ludwig Support: Andrew Pepper, Siegfried Zielinski, Helen Koriath, Lilo Mangelsdorff, Brigitte Schenk