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Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»
Edmund Kuppel, «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky», 1982
© Edmund Kuppel
3. When the Sea Replaces the Sky Like a celluloid sculpture, a 35mm loop of film hangs in front of and parallel to the photo sequence, identical to it in form and size. It runs through a film projector that stands on the floor (valley) and it is projected at right angles to the installation by a hand-cranked mechanism. The triangle of the 'film sculpture' displays the triangular course of the camera motion that produces film images. While the footage was being taken, the image was cropped parallel to the diagonal of the slopes of the valley slit, and thus appeared horizontal in projection, becoming a horizon upon which no sky rests, but the sea moves.


 
Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»Edmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky» | play videoEdmund Kuppel «The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky» | play video

Categories: Film | Photography | Installation

Keywords: Apparatus | Geography


 

 Edmund Kuppel
«The Valley, the Wave, and When the Sea Replaces the Sky»

This is a 3-part interactive photo and film installation over the 'Gorge d'Ailly', which flows into the sea on the French coast of the English Channel. The photo installation 'The Valley' and the technical projections 'The Wave' and 'If the Sea Replaces the Sky' combine the media of photography and film with a reflection on the apparatus needed for visual realization and also for perception. In the center of the installation, Edmund Kuppel placed the photomontage 'The Valley', which assembles and reconstructs the triangle of a valley and the ocean horizon in the same way that the film camera records it when moving along this line to form an always horizontal axis. Using a hand-operated film projector, the viewer can start the film with this camera move. The center of this photo work remains bracketed away and is the topic of the film installation 'The Wave' that is set up behind 'The Valley'. 'The Wave' is cut together as the negative image of a wave in the form of a loop and a cycle of individual photographs. The viewer sees this filmic motion in a mirror. In a direct, craftsmanlike way, it is thus always the viewer who sets the images in motion. The materiality of the film, the obviousness of the projection mechanism, and the montage are set in a complex, installation context here.