​franziska harnisch

The project space The Balcony is based in a shop window. There, I installed a fully covering window plot that showed a view of the same project space window. The 2x3 m plot was based on a screenshot from Google Street View. The view from July 2017 showed the room before being used as the The Balcony project space. Because Google Street View prevents direct centering in front of a motif, the print only works in one direction. Caused by the screenshot the image is blurry and the proportions are slightly inconsistent.

On the door of the project room, I attached 7 square motifs à 28 stacked adhesive stickers. The motifs are based on the previous exhibitions of the project space. For the stickers I used screenshots of the square previews on Instagram. The stickers were reminiscents of an exhibition collection and you could choose which one you wanted to collect (Panini principle). The stacks of stickers slowly disappeared over the exhibition period.

The third work, a video performance, was shown in Jim'z bar opposite the project room. The 37:14 min film illustrates the attempt to explore The Hague via Google Street View and to find the project space only by “aimless” roaming through the city. During this walk I zoomed in on things and people that I found interesting. As in my work "Don't Get Off the Path" (2018), I moved ghostly through the streets. The walking direction of the Google Street View recording person (whose face I occasionally discover in a window reflection) can be recognized by the people accompanying me, whom I either overtook or who kept popping up in front of me. Despite the (sometimes insufficient) pixelation, every person has a strong recognition value. The reactions during the screening of the video confirmed my assumptions: Despite this, or precisely because the images shown have a high recognition value as their own environment and also well-known people, the video was commented on lively. You rarely see your own living space on Google Street View.

The Balcony was the connecting element between all 3 works - the relics from Internet presentations / exhibitions / advertising and their shape and appearance are derived from the Internet or in this case from GSV and Instagram (square pattern, low pixel quality, analogue re-adaptation of digital versions of previous analogue realities ).