This sculpture is situated in a location where nearly all of the roads connecting to the city’s central urban functions converge: it can be seen as a hub from which politics, administration, culture, housing, shopping, and public transport are easily accessible. This work was created as part of the Kunstwettbewerb Verkehrskreisel Bergkamen, a competition to redefine the city’s traffic circles as “new city gates.”
\nThe first prize was awarded to Andreas M. Kaufmann for a work that looks like a static sculpture of a table or a hovering pavilion during the day. As the sun sets, a dynamic media sculpture emerges. The 6-meter-tall steel frame is clad with plexiglass. It contains a total of 24 alternating black and white slides, which are beamed onto the exterior wall of the structure by self-rotating slide projectors from inside. The changing and moving images depict people gesturing, all of whom are well known from public life (sports, culture, business, politics), and the media (e.g. Angela Merkel, Paris Hilton, and Barack Obama).
\nAlong the exterior of the sculpture, passersby can see these human gestures, which go in and out of focus, overlap, stretch, and distort, only to condense into a point of light in the next moment. The title makes reference to the impossibility of an agreement, illustrating an ironic critique of the times. By separating the images from their original contexts, they show that self-representation is possible in mass media, but that genuine communication and understanding are not.
\nThis is also shown in the discussions about the artwork that the artist intentionally provokes and regularly rekindles with an annual exchange of slides: once a year, a slide is replaced with a new image selected by the artist, while the citizens of Bergamen decide which one to remove.<\/p>\n