I have been looking at the photographs and video that I shot in Charlottenberg Palace. When I looked at this material in Berlin it seemed OK. Now I have been home in London for a week it all seems quite extraordinary. The opulence of that palace appears even more absurd from this distance.
I was struck when I was shooting the video that all the rooms contain a lot of mirrors and so most of the video is footage of tourists moving around rooms reflected in mirrors. Those of you who have read most of this blog will know that the concept of mirroring appeared in the work I was making in Berlin quite early in my residency. A lot of the video that I shot towards the end of my stay was composed with the idea of mirroring it through projection. However this footage of actual mirrors in the palace is very successful. I am particularly pleased by this as I shot it using my SLR camera rather that the video camera. This does mean that it is lower quality. The people entering rooms and moving around between actual presence and reflected presence seems choreographed and performative rather than banal. They all sport headphones as if on a sound walk, in fact it is the audio tour. Who knows what they are hearing, instructions, information about Frederiech II? They are absorbed in their own worlds, absorbed into the baroque decor.
In Berlin I started to make drawings in 2 and 3 dimensions from the map diaries that I kept throughout my stay. Having stuck these up on the wall in London I decided that these drawings have potential and can be developed further. So far the experiments in the studio are still quite basic, but as I was looking at the details of Roccoco stucco from Charlottenberg I was reminded about the way in which I thought I could reflect these arabesques and reflective curves in the drawings. I should take that thought to the studio today.
I am finding it really hard now that I am home to keep focus and to try and hold on to all the thoughts and sensations from the last 3 months. The time spent in Berlin was so intense that I feel a little like I am half asleep now.
Ballroom Neue Flugal. Some raw footage from Charlottenberg, shot on Nikon SLR Camera.
