Flachgebiet (Return to Walden)

Performance, Video, Object, 2010

︎ Video

The artist build structure large enough for one person in a farmer's field in the Burgundian countryside. From afar it looks like it could be a tool shed, a paintball shelter or an outdoor toilet. It serves as a tiny refuge from society and acts as a type of primitive camera obscura or viewfinder.

Through the peepholes between the stones, the surrounding stillness can be paused, framed and consumed by the eye as if it were a painting or photograph. The hut's isolation, crucial to its purpose, is provided by the wide, flat area that surrounds it. The field must be traversed in order to reach the hermit's quarters, so that the purpose of the structure is reiterated each time it is approached or left behind.

Movement is necessary so that the ritual of becoming still retains its meaning, and likewise solitude is defined by its distance from civilisation

^{Photos Deniz Üster}