Paradise Lost
Berlin, 2015, Installation with drawings, videos, objects and plants
A three-dimensional continuation of the drawing series “Islands”, (since 2014, see section drawings). Humanity long desired the paradise, that mystical place from which humans think they where exiled and where they want to return to ultimately. Not only John Milton describes in his epic novel of the same name the painful loss that accompanies the lost paradise, the quest for the return possesses the dreams and whishes of most people, mostly via the path of religion and seen as the ultimate goal for righteous behaviour.
The internet, and especially youtube, is full of videos which deal with the paradisiac ideal of an island – either for the means of relaxation in several hour long “mediation-videos”, or, in extreme contrast in the entire gameplay of “Dead Island”, a apocalypse survival video game which is indexed in many countries, where the protagonist has to survive a zombie-epidemic on an idyllic island in the South Seas. Both are faced in the installation and lead to the question what is actually more relaxing for the viewer: hour after hour of soft movements of a palm tree with the sound of the rushing see in the background or the option to follow a gamer on his surreal journey through the apocalypse?
Video stills monitor one, Relaxing 3 Hour Video of A Tropical Beach with Blue Sky White Sand and Palm Tree, D. Hansen / youtube:
Drawings, installation detail:
