NARKOSE

John Sturgeon
1993-94
Two Channel, Video, Sound and Sculptural Installation
with Poetic Text in English and German

NARKOSE is a two channel video and sculptural installation, originally created as a simulation for Art in the Age of Information exhibition at Wood Street Galleries of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust with its completed version executed for The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio. The generating video material is performance footage recorded in a moor in North Germany and inside an old brewery vat, on Pittsburgh's South Side. Additionally, both video channels integrate appropriated broadcast images from the Gulf War and the Berlin Wall. Simultaneously one channel is projected onto a floating wall-like screen, while the second channel is seen on a monitor inside a large, conical shape sheathed in lead. Both viewing objects are suspended in space at right angles to each other.
On the floating wall, the dominate image is a performance sequence of a body buried in a cavity excavated from an exposed cut in the moor created while on location in an ancient archeological site, the Witte Moor , Germany. Buried along with the body, just above the head, is a small color monitor playing documentary images from the recent Gulf War and the removal of the Berlin Wall. These images are seen through a circular, optical magnifying glass, appearing like thought forms or dreams.
An optical glass is also the viewing devise, in the tip of a large lead cone, through which the viewer sees in extreme close up a hammer ceaselessly banging on a wall creating a booming echo. Periodically as the hammer strikes the wall, the surface seemingly gives up flashes of images from the Gulf War or Berlin Wall sagas.
In both channels, these images serve as symbols/examples of collective psychic projections upon the culture, inherently carrying within themselves the seeds of both positive and negative, success and failure. It is this convoluted twist or mobius in our consciousness as it projects in our created environment that serves as intriguing content. Sturgeon's poetic text for Narkose and its translation are read by a male voice in English then by a female voice in German, evoking an eerie play of extremes - that which is and that which is not .

Narkose Exhibitions:

1993 (installation simulation, April 1993) Art in the Age of Information ,
Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Pittsburgh, PA
1994 Solo Exhibition, (April 18 -June 10, 1994)
The Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, Ohio



NARKOSE


 -text-
 John Sturgeon, ''93-'94
Text: spoken in English (Sturgeon) & German, with German translation and voice over by Edda Akkermann. Performance: video produced in theWitte-Moor , N.W. Germany.


that which is seen
and that which is hidden
that which is rising
and that which is sinking
that which is clear
and that which is obscure
that which is awake
and that which is asleep
that which is surfacing
and that which is submerging
that which is coming
and that which is going
that which is being born
and that which is dying
that which is arising
and that which is passing away
that which is becoming
and that which is disappearing
that which is good
and that which is evil
that which advances
and that which retreats
that which creates
and that which destroys
that which can change
and that which can not be undone
that which is blessed
and that which is dammed
that which is conscious
and that which is unconscious
that which adds
and that which subtracts
that which is
and that which is not


das, was wahrgenommen wird
und das, was verborgen bleibt
das, was aufsteigt
und das, was hinabsinkt
das, was klar ist
und das, was verschwommwn ist
das, was wach ist
und das, was schläft
das, was auftaucht
und das, was utertaucht
das, was kommt
und das, was geht
das, was geboren wird
und das, was stirbt
das, was entsteht
und das, was vergeht
das, was erscheint
und das, was verschwindet
das, was gut ist
und das, was böse ist
das, was vorangeht
und das, was zurücktritt
das, was schöpferisch ist
und das, was zerstört
das, was man ändern kann
und das, was sich mehr ändern läßt
das, was gesegnet ist
und das, was verdammt ist
das, was bewußt ist
und das, was unbewußt ist
das, was hinzugefügt wird
und das, was weggenommen wird
das, was ist
und das, was nicht ist




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