Void
The film shows a split screen, which during the corona lockdown became a widely used form for people’s communication that was reduced to online. They sat in their home and looked into the home of the people they were talking to from a great distance.
Around 40 plan sequences run in the fields of the split screen.
They were recorded in Berlin at familiar places in the city, which make them a living space, a home, such as a playground, sports facility or park.
In the strange spring of 2020, these places became strange because you couldn’t meet other people. The barriers in the deserted city were often the only movement. These flutter tapes with their nervous choreography are like visualizations of the inner states of the displaced, locked up and isolated people.
Only the hand camera testifies to the presence of a person, to a subjective view. The rhythm of her breathing becomes an organic part of the picture.
Maria Vedder is based in Berlin, Germany.
Maria Vedder has been a media artist since the late seventies.
From 1991 – 2014 she was a Full Professor at the Berlin University of the Arts, Germany. Here she was co-founder of the Institute for Time-Based Media.
She has spent long periods doing artistic research in Asia, where she has been also a guest lecturer on numerous occasions.
She has written books about video: „Kunst und Video“ and „DuMonts Handbuch der Videopraxis“ (DuMont-publishing house, Cologne, Germany).
Besides other awards she won the main prize in the 1988 „Marler Video Art Award“ for her work „The Heartbeat of Anubis“. The „Marler Video Art Award“ is one of the most prestigious awards for video art in Germany. 2009 she was an Artist in Residence in India, 1.Shantiroad Studio, Bangalore.
In 2012 she won the grant EMARE MEXICO of the European Commission.
2014 she won the special price of the jury of the Kunstpreis Haus am Kleistpark Berlin.
Her works are in the collections of the Museum Ludwig in Cologne; Neuer Berliner Kunstverein; Tate Gallery, Liverpool; Gallery Shimada, Yamaguchi-Shi, Japan; Gallery Scan, Tokyo; ZKM Karlsruhe; and others.
2019 Funding of an interactive catalog by the Berlin Cultural Senate: “All time in the world”, video works Maria Vedder, Distance Publisher Berlin 2020
2019 Project grant of the foundation Künstlerdorf Schöppingen, Germany.
2020 Artist Residence, Plan B. Artist Studios, Greece
She has recently published an interactive catalogue about her video works in mid-June 2020 by DISTANZ-Publishing House Berlin. With the DISTANCE app, excerpts from the video works shown in the book can be set in motion on an iPhone or iPad.
https://www.mariavedder.de/en/publications/2020/alle-zeit-der-welt/