The Dead

ALEXANDER HAHN

electronic media artist

THE DEAD

(2002 & ongoing, loops, length varying, HD video, 27" flatscreen, mirrored cylinder, pedestal, directional speaker)

The Dead is an ongoing series of cylindric/anamorphic video reliquaries honoring people whom I have once recorded and who have since passed away. Presented on upward facing flatscreen monitors with a central cylindric mirror, the videos are geometrically distorted. In the cylindric reflection, the original likeness becomes recognizable again. The mirror not only acts as the key to decipher the coded form of the 2-dimensional video but allows the viewer to walk around the image, creating the illusion of the luminous apparitions literally rising from their electromagnetic grave. Loop and cylindrical anamorphosis suggest the utopian possibility of eternal preservation, reminiscent of Morel's Invention by Bioy Casares or Raymond Roussel's Locus Solus, where the dead continually act out a pivotal incident in their lives. In The Dead, that would be the fleeting moment of our chance encounter.

Shown here is a virtual walk-through with a posthumous group portrait consisting of eight shrines, dedicated to, among others, computer music pioneer Max Mathews, Italian video poet Gianni Toti, musician Lou Reed and actor Telly Savalas.

The initial set of five shrines was presented in 2002 as part of my exhibition Astral Memories of a Flying Man at the Musée Jenisch in Vevey, Switzerland. It became the first electronic work of the Museum's collection.