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Szabolcs KissPál: Edging
Single channel video installation, 3,5 min loop, 2003

Szabolcs KissPál’s installation “Edging” presents a projection of the firmament, with the artist bringing that faraway view into the enclosed space of the exhibition hall. In doing so, he emphatically focuses our attention on the edges of the projected image and on the frame that forms the boundary between the image and outside world, between the “work” and “reality.” The illusion is that – with increasingly disturbing speed and frequency – flying birds bounce back off the edge of the picture like billiard balls.

In the words of the artist, the flight of the birds is unpredictable. If we aim a video camera at the sky and press the red button, a bird may fly through our field of vision after a certain time, coming from a random direction, and flying away in a random direction (…). This event also describes (...) the two remote points in space at which the bird enters and leaves the imaginary and yet concrete space of the visual cone of the lens.