January 1, 2021
architecture memory staging the ordinary sunset strip

Staging The Ordinary

by Markus Oberndorfer

Reality is understood as a system of representations and variations which people construct using symbols’1 based on the ‘relationship between the qualities of the surroundings and the human condition.’2

This is true for real life while being present at a place in person, and with all our senses, but generally every surrounding that creates an attractive force so strong as to make us engage. For example a 360 degree surrounding of the Sunset Strip like in this case, or the game- world of the Eclipse Blvd3 and GTA V that — based on its architecture and grid — undoubtably places us in an albeit compressed and rendered version of Los Angeles and the Sunset Strip.

The aim of my central media installation REVISITED is ‘to draw attention to the fundamental shifts that took place between 360 degree video and the two main media of our time — photography and film.’4 It focusses on topographical changes and the evolution of media. In particular those we have at our disposal to document our world (the pre-existing) with. It scrutinizes power relations that evolve with every new medium and manifest between content-creator and -consumer.

The idea behind the project ‘Staging The Ordinary’ is to pair the concept of the place — the constellation of signs and symbols — with other stimulants like music and narrated content to create a surrounding that makes us even more involved. Something that invites us to interpret the pre-existing while drawing from the situation5 and within; our Inner Source.6 For that reason an entirely staged spatial audio surrounding has been created for this participative 360 VR installation from a sound library and scripted and recorded conversations of passers by. A radio broadcast (REVISIT RADIO) with music produced for the project (REVISIT OST) and additional narrated content like daily news, weather forecast,… can optionally be added.

Most content narrated by the radio host, has been taken and interpreted from the 360 degree surrounding and the project itself. For example from billboards (some of which include temperature indicators, promote the upcoming season of Game of Thrones,…), the horizon (with the incoming marine layer), and so on. Every spectator putting the headset on, and with this act deciding to engage with the surrounding, could gather this information. Provided that the individual considers it as important and feels the urge to associate with it in a moment that Hermann Schmitz describes as ‘the onset of the sudden in a moment of primitive present’.

Architecture as a cultural phenomenon carries many strong references. ‘It is the inextricable link to cultural identity and acts as the identity holder in the form of the commonplace.’7

‘Feeling of belonging evolves from the participation in the common practice of interpretation and explanation of the past and hence collective identity.’8 It is thereby mostly signs or symbols that we personally associate something with or places that are embedded in our daily routines, that attract our attention. To one person it might be a record shop, to another a concert venue; a place one has visited or seen in a film or in media coverage. The announcement of a TV series or computer game on a billboard or ‘just’ the alley in between.

‘The more you know about the spatiality of feelings/sensations, the higher the competence to built spaces of sensation. Creating feelings means staging atmospheres.’9

The precondition for engaging with a surrounding and with what is presented, is the willingness to immerse. In case of medial representations, spectators need to surrender to what is described as the ‘Suspension of Disbelief’.10 The concept that to become emotionally involved in a narrative, audiences must react as if the characters or environment is real and the events are happening now. Moments like ‘Look! Over Here!’ while finger pointing at something that can only be seen in the 360 degree environment, show that what is true for literary content or film, is also true for other media involving our senses that can generate true-to-life reactions. The ‘border between fiction and witnessing’11 blurs in the illusion of being present on site. For the moment we surrender to the alternate reality, until we get pulled out of it by external influences or decide to disembark from it ourselves.

Even though spectators immerse into an entirely staged, always same and partially directed experience through narrated content, the chance that one person will ever have the same experience as another, is zero. It would require more than one person seeing, reading, stringing together and interpreting the exact same signs and symbols as another while ‘time unfolds’.12 But selection and perspectivism are based on the resources available to individuals.

A moment (and also the past) is ‘always interpreted from the perspective of current needs.’13 We never see it all, we never feel the same and keep drawing new perspective lines through the same 360 degree tunnel until we believe to have seen it all.‘ The fact that most moments were subsequently the same did not detract at all from the possibility that the next moment might be utterly different. And so the ordinary demanded unblinking attention. Any tedious hour might be the last of its kind.’14

This essay was written for “REVISITED” and as part of a booklet accompanying Markus Oberndorfer’s solo exhibition “Destined To Return” at Bildraum Bodensee. Published in German & English.

Notes:

Footnotes

  1. Cf. Gernot Böhme, Atmosphäre, 2. Neue Ästhetik, Suhrkamp Verlag 1995, p.22-23. ↩

  2. Cf. Dominika Gortych, Cultural Topographies of the Holocaust and Identity. On The Semantics of Emptiness in the Contempora- ry Polish and German Literature p.26. ↩

  3. Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, Destined To Return, Fig.18, The Eclipse Blvd, p.10 & Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, In Dialogue with Eclipse Blvd, Destined to Return, p.14. ↩

  4. Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, In Dialogue with Sunset Strip, Destined to Return (DTR), p.5. ↩

  5. Cf. Hermann Schmitz, Was ist Neue Phänomenologie?, Rostock, Ingo Koch Verlag, 2003, p.89-97. ↩

  6. Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, Destined To Return, Fig.13, Inner Source, DTR, p.9. ↩

  7. Cf. Martina Novakova, Erika Foltinova,The Ordinary - Everyday - Commonplace as a Reference of Cultural Identity, p.1. ↩

  8. Cf. Dominika Gortych, Cultural Topographies of the Holocaust and Identity. On The Semantics of Emptiness in the Contemporary Polish and German Literature p.26. ↩

  9. Cf. Michael Hauskeller, Atmosphäre, Philosophische Unteruchungen zum Begriff und zur Wahrnehmung von Atmosphären. ↩

  10. Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, Destined To Return, Fig.11_12, Suspension of Disbelief, p.9. ↩

  11. Cf. Inge Marzszolek, Von der Mediatisierung zur Musealisierung, Transformation der Figur des Zeitzeugen, Werkstatt Geschichte, Heft 62 (2012), Klartext Verlag. ↩

  12. Cf. Markus Oberndorfer, Destined To Return, Fig.14_15, Unfolding Time, DTR, p.9. ↩

  13. Cf. Dominika Gortych, Cultural Topographies of the Holocaust and Identity. On The Semantics of Emptiness in the Contemporary Polish and German Literature p.26. ↩

  14. Cf. Deborah Frausch, Can Architecture Be Ordinary? p.12 & Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005 [1981]), p.166. ↩