Volker Eichelmann, Roland Rust, Johannes Schweiger
Have you noticed that the climate is changing? Winter feels like spring, and cherry blossoms bloom in December. If you're worried, maybe you should call Gordon Michael Scallion's 'Earth Changes Hotline' on (900) 903 2745. This is just one piece of information Volker Eichelmann, Roland Rust and Johannes Schweiger dug up for their project 'What Does it Mean When a Whole Culture Dreams the Same Dream?' (1999-2000). They scanned the internet, books and magazines - using sources ranging from Time magazine and official CNN newsgroups to bizarre sites such as www.near-death.com or www.parascope.com - to discover stories about paranormal phenomena, scientific discoveries, serial killings, mass suicides, cannibalism, occultism and revelations about secret LSD tests conducted by the CIA on American soldiers in the 1960s. The web also features as a subject in its own right through reported cases of 'internet addiction disorder' (a woman locking her children in their room for days so she could surf the net undisturbed, for example). The artists also quote numerological theories on the satanic origin of the worldwide web: the letter 'w' in binary notation is 0111 0111, which totals 6 according to numerological counting methods. So in fact www spells 666, the number of the beast. Scary, no?
The above information was displayed as text pieces on Minimalist coloured print-outs designed by Nicole Kapitza. These were arranged in clusters on the wall of the gallery and formed one part of this multimedia installation. The second grouping of works consisted of visual material. Excerpts from popular science, architecture and design magazines were mixed in with private snapshots and assembled in groups. A sound collage created from club beats and sub-sonic bass lines interspersed with samples of dialogue from sinister films complemented the show's gloomy atmosphere. The overall mood suggested a mysterious impending catastrophe.
By establishing a web of cross-references between stories, images and sounds, Rust, Schweiger and Eichelmann revealed examples of the myriad fears and fantasies that constitute collective paranoia in an installation that was genuinely creepy. However, it also demonstrated that paranoia is a product. All of these stories, images and sounds were generated by the media in order to create a simple effect: to scare you. In other words, paranoia is a stimulant we willingly consume on a daily basis.
Still, these figments of imagination serve a function: whenever we fail to grasp the complexity of the world that surrounds us, we conjure up phantasmagorias to compensate for our lack of understanding. Rust, Schweiger and Eichelmann show that this trick has been perpetuated for centuries. Albrecht Dürer, for example, had never seen a real rhinoceros when he created his famous depiction of one in 1515. None the less, his makeshift representation determined the way Europeans perceived this exotic animal for generations to come. More examples: would you believe that a rope made from the yarn with which spiders spin their webs is powerful enough to hold up a Boeing 747? Or that scientists have implanted spiders' genes into goats to facilitate the mass production of spiders' yarn? An ominous increase in spiderwebs was discovered during Nato's attack on Yugoslavia. Was Nato experimenting with a new kind of biological warfare? You never know. But you can always make connections.
In Rust, Schweiger and Eichelmann's collection of incriminating material, the imagination moves freely from one piece of evidence to the next until you begin to realise that paranoia can reveal how the truth may often lie on the surface of things. Once you believe, for example, that the CIA or the Mafia is running our society, you can find evidence to support your theory on the front page of any newspaper. If you are convinced that the Fibonacci series is the code to the order of being, any numerical sequence from the Dow-Jones index to the numbering of the Psalms in the Bible will prove you right. Paranoid perception skims smoothly across the glossy surface of our media culture; if you want to reveal the truth, a paranoid approach might be the most appropriate method of analysis.
