TimeTunnel

Fig. 2. Ursula Kraft, TimeTunnel exterior, mobile tunnel sculpture, 38 x 4 x 5 m, 1993. (Architect: Bernd Hoge. Music: Otto Kranzler, Design: Labfac Stuttgart.) Participants walk inside this structure for a multimedia experience of motion, light and sound. quences, the specific differences in impact between the pictures produced by the thermal transfer printer and the images as they appeared on the monitor were of greater structural and aesthetic relevance for the following reasons: • due to its specific luminosity and transparency, the monitor produced its own particular definition of space and of details within space • computer prints transpose a plastic effect into a surface effect by means of a coarse-grained frame screen, which does not resemble photography • I made the size of the individual pictures and the overall size of a sequence essentially dependent on the possibility that both pictorial detail and the whole sequence could be perceived from the same distance. TlMETUNNEL Ursula Kraft, c/o Argonaut, 58 bis Rue Montcalm, 75018 Paris, France. Received 15 August 1993. Acceptedfor publication byAnnick Bureaud. Time'Iunnel, a multimedia Gesamtkunstwerk , combines the fields of architecture , photography, film and music. It is a travelling installation for public spaces that will be exhibited in a number of European cities. After its successful opening in Stuttgart, the TimeTunnel is now ready to travel to other locations, such as Paris, Barcelona, Madrid, London, Cardiff, Budapest and Berlin. French media theoretician Paul Virilio begins his introduction to the TimeTunnelwith the warning: "Attention , eyes!" The TimeTunnel succeeds in visualizing a phenomenon that has frequently been described by Virilio-the breakneck process of acceleration that calls our relationship to space and time into question. We are finding ourselves at the transition to a new dimension of time. So, what is time? The TimeTunnel poses this question from ever-changing points ofview, investigating the change in our concept of time. As part of the interdisciplinary group Argonaut, I conceived the idea for the TimeTunnel and translated it into visual terms. After a production time of 3 years I have now realized this ambitious project. The TimeTunnelwas designed by Labfac Stuttgart as a mobile tunnel sculpture (Fig. 2) that people can walk through, and was built with Bernd Hoge as the responsible architect. It is 38 m long, 4 m high and 5 m wide. The structure forms the experiential space and is both a projection surface and a path that the beholder can walk along. In addition, it makes the work of art autonomous and enables it to be installed in public spaces in any town or city. The form of the tunnel is a reference to fundamental human experience, and offers the beholder the opportunity of passing through various experiential time zones. A formula for defining time by means of light, movement and space is reflected in the programming sequences and slides used in the installation. Monochrome light-pictures entice the visitor into the depth of the tunnel (Fig. 3), connecting light and time. Studies of bodies photographed underwater are superimposed on the blue light-pictures, elaborating the theme of movement. The free-floating bodies are a reference to both our beginnings and our future movements in space. These images are also constantly in flux: through computer -generated transformation, they appear in subtle variations until finally dissolving into abstract forms. The theme of space is treated through microscope and satellite shots that alternate and cross-fade. Universal principles of form make them almost identical. Just as the relationship between the beholder and the picture changes in Fig. 3. Ursula Kraft, TimeTunnel interiors, mobile tunnel sculpture, 38 x 4 x 5 m, 1993. (Architect: Bernd Hoge. Music: Otto Kranzler. Design : Labfac Stuttgart.) Monochrome light-pictures entice visitors into the depth of the tunnel, where studies of bodies photographed underwater are superimposed. 354 Abstracts the shift between the microscopic and the orbital view, the light-picture tunnel sets up a new, disproportionate relationship between the beholder and the picture surface. Shadows, the oldest human measurement of time, also show the physical presence of the visitor on the walls of the tunnel, making light-pictures of the viewers. Sound is continuously reconstituted at random within the space, in a manner similar...