The installation consists of a room with four white walls which have been covered with a ‘photo wallpaper’ that depicts the room exactly, yet slightly shifted. The walls in this room are completely covered with an image that shows precisely that room but offset by 5.5 degrees and tilted by 0.4 degrees. The wall image around the entire room makes it seem architecturally slightly changed.
A total of four images were printed on the fleece wallpaper.
The room installation by Daniela Friebel was generously supported by the Caspar Manufaktur.
Dorothea Ullrich
What do people notice when entering a room for the very first time? Maybe quite subconsciously the smell. And the temperature. And then the floor beneath their feet — what does it feel like? They take a look around. What kind of room are they in? What colour are the walls? Is there wallpaper? Are the walls smooth or rough? Are there nooks or pillars? How many windows are there? How is the room furnished? What is the room used for? When we enter a room for the very first time, we are — at least at first — always guests. We feel unsure of ourselves, we wonder if we are allowed to touch things, if we should shut the door behind us, look in the corners, if we are allowed to sit down on the chairs.
When we enter a room, we also enter an image. Every room is its own image. We can walk through this image; we can observe it from many different points of view. Things change depending on how we look at them. This is not really the case, of course — the things don‘t move, they are simply there. But we are able to move, so that we see a table in front of us, next to us or behind us. We can also observe a wall from the side, in sidelight or stand right in front of it; we can peak around the corner, behind the curtains, close them, sit down on the floor — we can do all sorts of things, and when we do them, we experience the room and everything that makes it what it is. We are curious and want to understand the room and the image of the room.
But just how reliable is the image that we see? What happens when something changes? And what happens to us when things change? When suddenly things aren’t the way they were before? When we see things in a different light? When our first impression no longer is right? Is it possible that we too change when our perception of the things in the room changes? And if so what stays the same?
