Capital

‘Capital’ is a video work by myself and Australian artist David Bickerstaff, a frequent collaborator over the past six years, that explores the nightscapes of Berlin through a personal journey. It takes as a key element the apparent confidence that the city portrays as represented by the rapid growth and development of infrastructure and the proliferation of monumental signature architecture and civic regeneration that has arisen since re-unification of Germany. The image of prosperity and confidence is countered by the paradox of Berlin still coming to terms with its identity as a capital city. Consequently the video sets out to explore dualities around the notions of capital and the sublime and confidence and anxiety.

‘Capital’ is concerned with these core issues and aligns itself to recent debates in contemporary fine art practices in photography and the moving image, around the representation of the urban space through subjective documentary approaches. Capital is also grounded in a larger and continuing body of photographic work I have been making in Berlin since 1989 that researches the relationship between illumination and power in relation to architecture and public and private spaces.
‘Capital’ has been included in the major media and electronic arts festival ‘File 2002’ (Festival of International Language Electronic) in Sao Paulo, Brazil, It has also been presented at the Institute for Interactive Media at UTS, Sydney, Australia and installed as a site specific work as part of the Digital Aesthetic Conference and exhibition at The University of Central Lancashire, Preston in 2002 where I also presented a conference paper contribution based on issues raised in the work.