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Do Angels Have Suitcases With Wheels?Daniela Berglehn
published: Pneuma Monoxyd, ISBN 978-3-938847-11
We are looking down on a square from a great height. People come from different directions, cross the screen and disappear again from view. If you do not know this place, you will not necessarily recognize it again. It is the forecourt of Dortmund’s main train station. Filmed from an unknown point and from a great height. Over the course of two days Thomas Köner spent several hours filming what was happening below him, situated in a window in the canteen in RWE Towers. This knowledge is of little use to us if we wish to understand the footage, which is now a piece of video art – but a few RWE colleagues have already started looking out the window in a different way. We see people making their way. They go from right to left, move diagonally across the square. Their paths cross, but they never meet. All of them are on their way, but their tempos differentiate them from one another. Some have a clear goal, others walk backwards and forwards, and others have stopped and are waiting. It is a square in the middle of the city. It is full of hustle and bustle, and yet nothing happens. The station forecourt is not a place where things happen, it is only a place people pass through. In this respect it suits Köner’s concept, his interest in the fringes/periphery. The camera’s position remains fixed. There is no panning and no editing. Köner’s camera simply observes and leaves it up to the viewer to follow the movements within the filmed excerpt. We are not told when to start and when to stop observing and so our gaze follows people according to their tempo. It rests on those who are waiting, travels with those in a hurry straight across the screen and ambles with those taking their time. It stops, is distracted and – sooner or later – finds its way into empty space.
Köner framed the scene in such a way as to place the middle of the square roughly in the center of the picture. Almost all movements cross this center, though it is not a focal point for the action. Nothing gathers in this center point, it has no depth. Instead, the emptiness of the surface becomes the center. In addition to this, having almost a birds-eye view gives us the impression that we are floating over the scene. We are outsiders watching and experiencing the events. We occupy almost an elite position because we are able to see what the people below cannot. They are accompanied by a white figure. Every moving person is followed by one of these white figures. They are like doppelgaengers, except they have a transparent glow, specifically when compared to the darker figures. This immateriality quickly leads to an association with "angels", or to be more exact: guardian angels. A ghostly being, a personal companion at every person’s side who they will never be able to see. Even when guardian angels step in to save their charge, they remain invisible – although they do leave them with a sense that something is out there. Guardian angels live on their own spiritual plane, parallel to us.
It is different with Thomas Köner. His angels are the result of postponement and come about because he superimposes his film sequences onto one another causing time to shift slightly. This concept of fading, superimposing, and postponing time and space offers room for transcendence, but this portrayal of two dimensions in the same frame can have more than just a religious interpretation. All moving objects have a companion – even the pigeons. And: do angels have suitcases with wheels?
In this respect these "figures of light" do indeed originate in another dimension, but not necessarily from another world. Moreover, both angels and passers-by come from the same source, and they also both have shadows, which place them in space. Köner does not need another world or a dramatic setting to find his subject matter. This clip is enough: He succeeds in turning the gray sadness of the station forecourt into something magic and moving.
We see ourselves in those making their way, but also in those following them. That recognition enriches us, and in this respect is a good force – but it is not just good. It is what lies between them that makes us afraid, because we cannot make them coincide. This work is not about becoming one – whether with yourself, whether in meeting an angel. Rather it portrays the complexity of a moment and the nothingness in between. We have always either already moved past that moment or are still behind it. Never here and now. This is what needs to be endured.
Do Angels Have Suitcases With Wheels?Daniela Berglehn
published: Pneuma Monoxyd, ISBN 978-3-938847-11
We are looking down on a square from a great height. People come from different directions, cross the screen and disappear again from view. If you do not know this place, you will not necessarily recognize it again. It is the forecourt of Dortmund’s main train station. Filmed from an unknown point and from a great height. Over the course of two days Thomas Köner spent several hours filming what was happening below him, situated in a window in the canteen in RWE Towers. This knowledge is of little use to us if we wish to understand the footage, which is now a piece of video art – but a few RWE colleagues have already started looking out the window in a different way. We see people making their way. They go from right to left, move diagonally across the square. Their paths cross, but they never meet. All of them are on their way, but their tempos differentiate them from one another. Some have a clear goal, others walk backwards and forwards, and others have stopped and are waiting. It is a square in the middle of the city. It is full of hustle and bustle, and yet nothing happens. The station forecourt is not a place where things happen, it is only a place people pass through. In this respect it suits Köner’s concept, his interest in the fringes/periphery. The camera’s position remains fixed. There is no panning and no editing. Köner’s camera simply observes and leaves it up to the viewer to follow the movements within the filmed excerpt. We are not told when to start and when to stop observing and so our gaze follows people according to their tempo. It rests on those who are waiting, travels with those in a hurry straight across the screen and ambles with those taking their time. It stops, is distracted and – sooner or later – finds its way into empty space.
Köner framed the scene in such a way as to place the middle of the square roughly in the center of the picture. Almost all movements cross this center, though it is not a focal point for the action. Nothing gathers in this center point, it has no depth. Instead, the emptiness of the surface becomes the center. In addition to this, having almost a birds-eye view gives us the impression that we are floating over the scene. We are outsiders watching and experiencing the events. We occupy almost an elite position because we are able to see what the people below cannot. They are accompanied by a white figure. Every moving person is followed by one of these white figures. They are like doppelgaengers, except they have a transparent glow, specifically when compared to the darker figures. This immateriality quickly leads to an association with "angels", or to be more exact: guardian angels. A ghostly being, a personal companion at every person’s side who they will never be able to see. Even when guardian angels step in to save their charge, they remain invisible – although they do leave them with a sense that something is out there. Guardian angels live on their own spiritual plane, parallel to us.
It is different with Thomas Köner. His angels are the result of postponement and come about because he superimposes his film sequences onto one another causing time to shift slightly. This concept of fading, superimposing, and postponing time and space offers room for transcendence, but this portrayal of two dimensions in the same frame can have more than just a religious interpretation. All moving objects have a companion – even the pigeons. And: do angels have suitcases with wheels?
In this respect these "figures of light" do indeed originate in another dimension, but not necessarily from another world. Moreover, both angels and passers-by come from the same source, and they also both have shadows, which place them in space. Köner does not need another world or a dramatic setting to find his subject matter. This clip is enough: He succeeds in turning the gray sadness of the station forecourt into something magic and moving.
We see ourselves in those making their way, but also in those following them. That recognition enriches us, and in this respect is a good force – but it is not just good. It is what lies between them that makes us afraid, because we cannot make them coincide. This work is not about becoming one – whether with yourself, whether in meeting an angel. Rather it portrays the complexity of a moment and the nothingness in between. We have always either already moved past that moment or are still behind it. Never here and now. This is what needs to be endured.
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