Metalog, 1998-2001
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden
The transdisciplinary work “Metalog” is in two parts:
A: An internal wall intervention in the entrance hall.
B: An external intervention in form of a three-part video installation.
The internal intervention is a location-specific photographic work consisting of 24 anodized aluminium housings each 0.6m x 3.88m, divided into two units, each with twelve elements. The image format as a whole and in its individual parts matches the shuttering grid on the concret walls on the right and the left in the atrium.
The picture motif is a lichen, a symbiotic organism serving as a methaphor for the mutual interdependency of things, and a monochrome blue image whose colour corresponds with the exterior facade of the institute.
The external intervention is a three-part video work, stored on Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) filmed largely on-site while the Institute was being planned and built, from 1998 to 2001. The work has three chapters (Form-Substance-Difference) addressing the interaction between architecture, science and art, and the tension between scientific and aesthetic perception.
Duration: 15 minutes, colour blue-dominated, silent, programmed as a continuous loop.
The work is concieved as a triptych installation in a space with variable dimensions.
It can be projected directly on to any white wall, using three video beamers and three DVD players.
Metalog: A Net-Work based on communication.