The Name 1990
Der Name
1990
Video sculpture: steel frame, CRTs, transmitter
400x200x250 cm
Discover European Video
Anthology Film Archives, New York
With "Der Name" Bielicky starts developing his works more consistently, with the starting point being "Menora/Inventur". Again, the wireless transmission of information between symbolic objects as well as an even more conceptual approach to the arrangement of media within a fixed structure, now in the depth of the room itself, play a key role. Bielicky addresses a networked world via the symbol of the spiral, which acts as an information carrier in various contexts. The seven CRT televisions transmit a video of a flame from a black reflective ball that is the transmitter but is not immediately recognizable as such. "Der Name" is the first walk-in / proto-interactive work.
One can walk through the spiral like through a tunnel. At the end oft hat tunnel is a black sphere (the somewhere). A small TV transmitter transmits the information (in the form of a flame) to the carrier, the spiral, and the receivers (TVs). Information always moves through time and space in the same form. It always has the form of the spiral. The sounds of human language move through space in the same way as our solar system moves through the universe. We store information on a computer disc in a sprial form, as we do on a videotape.
Michael Bielicky
The Name (1990), which is technically akin to Menorah/Inventur (the small televisions are receivers for a video source nearby, fire and screens are intertwined as a symbol of and a mean of communication), is the perfect balance of technical expertise and historic cultural mystery. Bielicky unmasks technology as one Metanarrative among many.