Vertebrae Train Project Tra Bouscaren
The "VertebraeTrain Project" is a physical and symbolic exploration of extinction and a meditation on the transmutation of energy from one form into another.
Bouscaren presents Berlin's U5 underground train as new kind of spine. We, the travelers on it, are conveyors of messages, feeding the central nervous system of a new kind of meta-organism--"The Great City"--with fresh perspectives and information. Brachiosaurus vertebrae suspended over the visitors heads as they travel inside the installation tunnel reference an earlier time when another group of organisms ruled the earth, and imply the probability of our own extinction and/or evolution into something else. This point is re-emphasized by the video projection of the U5 train line at the entrance to the installation, as this train line was the only one which ran exclusively under the area of former East Berlin. Referencing the DDR represents yet another reflection of the "extinction of a beheamoth", as well pointing out its reincarnation in the new form that is re-unified Germany, which in turn is now a part of a unified Europe.
The "Vertebrae Train" is a gesamtkunstwerke that takes the viewer out of the museum by taking him into itself. The work projects the visitor along a round-trip journey inside a dark tunnel that reflects the U5's journey on several levels. The journey travels along a path that reminds one of the inevitabilty of death but which ultimately yields to a shape greater than ourselves-- the circle of life--realized upon the trip's completion. The round trip of the underground train from Alexanderplatz to its enstation at Hönrow and back again resonates with the physical trip the viewer must take through the circular tunnel to complete the work. The installation begins with the suspension of the length of a dinosaur vertebrae from the ceiling in a wide circle in the middle of a large room. The bones (or casts, as the museum will allow) will be engulfed by a circular tunnel of black cloth. Visitors will be directed to walk through the black circular tunnel, under the bones.
The tunnel will have only one opening which will serve as both the entrance and the exit and will be located at the point in the circle of bones where the head meets the tail. A two-way video screen will split that opening perpendicularly, thus forcing the viewer to choose a side, and thus their direction through the tunnel--either from head to tail, or from tail to head. Uncut video footage taken from either end of the interior of the U5 Berlin underground train will be projected onto either side of the video screen. The imagery will be taken from one of the newer trains on the line which are completely open from one end to the other. The carriages on these trains are not separate from one another but rather are connected by open, flexible sheaths--thus making it possible to shoot video footage of the entire length of the train from one end to the other, simultaneously. However, no matter which side of the screen the viewer enters on, he can see both perspectives at once and is thus positioned, impossibly, at both ends of the train at the same time. From this point of departure, the viewer turns his back to the video and travels along with and under the Brachiosaurus vertebrae into the nadir of darkness in the circular tunnel. The rest of the viewers "voyage" will amount to a kind of re-birth through the ever increasing proximity to the the light and sound of the video footage at the tunnel's end, which is also where the experience began.
Vertebrae Train Project Tra Bouscaren
The "VertebraeTrain Project" is a physical and symbolic exploration of extinction and a meditation on the transmutation of energy from one form into another.
Bouscaren presents Berlin's U5 underground train as new kind of spine. We, the travelers on it, are conveyors of messages, feeding the central nervous system of a new kind of meta-organism--"The Great City"--with fresh perspectives and information. Brachiosaurus vertebrae suspended over the visitors heads as they travel inside the installation tunnel reference an earlier time when another group of organisms ruled the earth, and imply the probability of our own extinction and/or evolution into something else. This point is re-emphasized by the video projection of the U5 train line at the entrance to the installation, as this train line was the only one which ran exclusively under the area of former East Berlin. Referencing the DDR represents yet another reflection of the "extinction of a beheamoth", as well pointing out its reincarnation in the new form that is re-unified Germany, which in turn is now a part of a unified Europe.
The "Vertebrae Train" is a gesamtkunstwerke that takes the viewer out of the museum by taking him into itself. The work projects the visitor along a round-trip journey inside a dark tunnel that reflects the U5's journey on several levels. The journey travels along a path that reminds one of the inevitabilty of death but which ultimately yields to a shape greater than ourselves-- the circle of life--realized upon the trip's completion. The round trip of the underground train from Alexanderplatz to its enstation at Hönrow and back again resonates with the physical trip the viewer must take through the circular tunnel to complete the work. The installation begins with the suspension of the length of a dinosaur vertebrae from the ceiling in a wide circle in the middle of a large room. The bones (or casts, as the museum will allow) will be engulfed by a circular tunnel of black cloth. Visitors will be directed to walk through the black circular tunnel, under the bones.
The tunnel will have only one opening which will serve as both the entrance and the exit and will be located at the point in the circle of bones where the head meets the tail. A two-way video screen will split that opening perpendicularly, thus forcing the viewer to choose a side, and thus their direction through the tunnel--either from head to tail, or from tail to head. Uncut video footage taken from either end of the interior of the U5 Berlin underground train will be projected onto either side of the video screen. The imagery will be taken from one of the newer trains on the line which are completely open from one end to the other. The carriages on these trains are not separate from one another but rather are connected by open, flexible sheaths--thus making it possible to shoot video footage of the entire length of the train from one end to the other, simultaneously. However, no matter which side of the screen the viewer enters on, he can see both perspectives at once and is thus positioned, impossibly, at both ends of the train at the same time. From this point of departure, the viewer turns his back to the video and travels along with and under the Brachiosaurus vertebrae into the nadir of darkness in the circular tunnel. The rest of the viewers "voyage" will amount to a kind of re-birth through the ever increasing proximity to the the light and sound of the video footage at the tunnel's end, which is also where the experience began.