Two Days at the Falls

2 channel video installation, 4K, 22 min. loop, 2015

In Isabell Spengler's installation we are presented with two panoramic video depictions of the iconic Niagara Falls - one that was created onsite and the other, filmed in a three-dimensional model, constructed by the artist in her Berlin studio having never visited the Falls. This second model is an embodiment of the artist's preconceived notions of the place - a distillation of ideas based on a multitude of images, films, texts and digital replicas depicting the famous site.
Alongside these fictional falls, we are confronted with the same 360-degree pan over the actual cataract and surrounding landscape, shot on location in Niagara Falls, Ontario, in March 2015 when the falls happened to be partially frozen. The adjacent screens play with concepts of anticipation, imagination, time and place.

Isabell Spengler's Two Days at the Falls explores of the intersection between the real and the imagined, popular culture and private perception, the monumental and the ordinary against the backdrop of contemporary, "immersive" media technologies.



concept, production, set, editing: Isabell Spengler
starring: Lucile Desamory
cinematography, color correction: Till Beckmann
sound recordists: Markus Ruff, Pedro Ferreira
stage hands: Clarissa Thieme, Juliane Zelwies
music: WOO - Clive and Mark Ives

generously supported by:
Werkleitz, Goethe Institute Toronto, EU Culture, IFA, Trinity Square Video, Images Festival, Embassy Suites Hotel

press release:
Trinity Square Video, exhibition April 7 - May 16, 2015

reviews:
Isabell Spengler and the Lure of Niagara Falls, by Daniella E. Sanders, Canadian Art Magazine, May 12, 2015