Conceived specifically for the gallery space of the Austrian Embassy in Berlin, Bernhard Gal’s intermedia installation Die Grüne Hölle (Green Hell) ironically refers to the »staged media spectacle» of the 2006 football World Cup. Visitors are requested to wear masks which serve as green light filters. The installation unifies visual and acoustic elements from the world of football - modified sound recordings of football broadcasts and fan chants - with reduced visual elements from the (media) cosmos of football. The curve of a football stadium is imitated in the u-shaped layout of the gallery acoustically and visually, ‘battle calls’, chants and cheers are integrated in a concentrated sound composition within a green coloured listening environment. The result is a subtle, yet intense sound experience, far from the massiveness of the original materials. Finally, in the darkened back section of the gallery, a video installation detaches the ubiquitous impositions of mass media from all messages and manipulations, what remains is the blank flickering of a tv monitor which can only be viewed indirectly.

Die Grüne Hölle (2006)

masks, transparent plastic bowls, water, grass, CDRs, grass carpets, tv monitor, DVD player, CD players, loudspeakers

Design of masks: Nanna Neudeck .|. Technical construction: Götz Dihlmann
Many thanks to: Ingrid Beirer, and to Hartmut, Ismet and Stephan
In cooperation with the Festival Sonambiente Berlin 2006.
Supported by: ..Austrian Cultural Forum, Berlin ..|.. DAAD Artists-in-Residence Programme Berlin