Berlin, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, 2006
new spaces in public in connection with Artcircolo, Video-Installation, 6 min

“as if we were alone” was shown at 52. Venice Bieniale, 2007

Dealing creatively with new communications technologies and their impact on our life, our culture and our behaviour in everyday situations has been the basis on which the artist duo “Empfangshalle” developed their vision of a trans-societal project in the form of film and installation. Corbinian Böhm and Michael Gruber view their art as a form of communication and a process of interacting with the public. In this spirit, “Empfangshalle” has performed research in international metropolises such as Barcelona, Hongkong, Guangzhou and Berlin, analysing mobile telephone users’ behaviour and visualising, through dedicated stagings and sculptural interventions, new spaces and gestures which develop when using mobile telephones. There are many examples for how we create “mobile privacy” in which to communicate at our leisure: the user who stares at the ground, making his rounds in apparent pursuit of an invisible line, obvious to his surroundings, or someone on a bus, passionately discussing his relationship while cupping his hand to shield himself, or the “business stalker” fleeing from a spot of no reception. Starting from the realisation that “Whoever uses a mobile phone will distance himself from his surroundings through real or virtual spaces”, the artists, in their future-oriented short-feature film, formulate tentative “mobile telephony spaces” being offered as part of a world wide telephony service. The result is “documentary fiction”, which takes the audience onto a journey to a borderline area between certainty and illusion, into a space where fact and fiction mix.

In cooperation with Vodafone Group Research & Development, Germany.