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Panorama Berlin - TV Tower of the Alexander Platz

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani

  • 2005
  • Installation
  • Japan Premiere
大きなサイズで見る
1

This video installation contains images showing the restaurant at the observation platform of the "Berlin TV Tower", one of the most well-known architectural constructions representing the former GDR.

As the entire topmost level of the Berlin TV tower rotates slowly in horizontal direction, guests at the restaurant situated on this level can enjoy their meals with a 360°aerial view of Berlin. Since opening, the restaurant has been making one revolution every hour, but after reunification and refurbishment, the speed was increased to one revolution in 30 minutes. It is said that this decision was forced by the pressure of business efficiency as an effect of the introduction of capitalist economy.
For this work, citizens and tourists at the windows were filmed from inside the restaurant for 30 minutes - just as long as it takes to make one revolution. By playing the footage back at half speed and thereby stretching the running time to one hour, the original revolution speed of the GDR era has been restored. The slowed-down movements of people in the video highlight the increased speed of society itself in the eastern part of Germany today, and thus evokes somewhat nostalgic feelings toward the former GDR.

Berlin TV Tower

TV tower on Berlin's Alexanderplatz. The current height is 368 meters.
Since its completion in 1969 for the 20th anniversary of the founding of the former GDR, the tower has been broadcasting TV programs to households across Berlin, and even after reunification, it has remained a popular and familiar Berlin landmark up to this day. After the completion of this work, the rotation speed of the restaurant level was further increased to the current speed of one revolution every 20 minutes.

Profiles

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani

Artist Duo

With their work Fischer & el Sani focus on transitory spaces and vacuum situations in urban environments, collective memory and vision in various media such as film, video, installation and photography. They critically reflect the rise and fall of modernity, the intense and uncanny relationship between our contemporary society and utopian projects that have driven the evolution of our history, from the past to the future, or the anachronistic merging of both ends. Their work is a permanent pursuit of and negotiation with the transition of time. Fischer & el Sani are interested in exploring the historic traces of urban landmarks, monuments and events that embody such a transition. Several places that were once hallmarks, centers of political culture, avant-garde art, and social developments, have become more or less temporally blind spots in contemporary society. They bring them back to today's consciousness in their altered, mystified phases: not utopian anymore, not obsolete, but rather not yet redefined.Nina Fischer / Maroan el Sani are filmmakers and visual artists. They have been working together in Berlin since 1993. From 2007 until 2010 they have been Associate Professors for Film and Media Art at Sapporo City University, Japan. International exhibitions they have participated in include Gwangju Biennale 1995, 2002, 2008, Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, 1999, Manifesta 4, Frankfurt 2002, Sydney Biennale 2002, 10th Istanbul Biennial 2007, 5th Media City Seoul Biennale, 2012 and solo exhibitions at Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, 1999, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media, 2005, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, 2007, Kunsthaus Glarus, 2009, Cobra Museum, Amstelveen, Museum of Contemporary Art Hiroshima, 2010, Austin Museum of Art - Arthouse, Austin and Berlinische Galerie - Museum of Modern Art, Berlin, 2012.

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Exhibition

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani New Installation Exhibition

Radio Solaris / −273,15°C=0 Kelvin

Finished

* Information in Japanese only

Links

Installation

129

Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani's works

5

Works of 2005

55

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