ELÍN HANSDÓTTIR

2015
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Berlin, Germany.
Curated by Ellen Blumenstein

Collaborators: 
Choreography: Margrét Bjarnadóttir
Cinematorgraphy: Frerk Linz 
Sound: Úlfur Hansson 

The site-specific new production uses the institution’s architecture as a starting point for a spatial and filmic installation, which encompasses two complementary floors. The enviroment on this level was used before the exhibition opened as a location for shooting an experimental film, presented on the floor above. While the installation looks at the space and its properties through various constellations of objects and perspectival shifts, in the film a further dimension of perception is superimposed through the use of the camera and editing techniques. The film’s sound connects both spaces, which together interweave present, past, surface, depth, and 

movement. The piece emerges upon entrance, as ties between its individual elements are produced. The term Suspension of Disbelief was coined at the beginning of the nineteenth century by Samuel Taylor Coleridge to justify the success of artistic fiction: since we derive such a great pleasure from observing it, we “believe” the artistic illusion even against our better judgment. Early cinema’s special effects also employ this phenomenon, and were often – as here – simply simulated with glass painting, but nonetheless have the power to spur the imagination.