Matthias Tharang — Artist Documentation

Resteficken

The permanently-promised rescue, the attempted satisfaction of created desires, or the expectation of eternal salvation of one’s bitter hardships will never be accomplished, but it keeps things going, provides stability and a euphemistic security. It is the human need to comprehend those mechanisms as something rational with a reasonable principle, which originates a thrivingly expanding absurdity.

Video – 2007 / original duration 30:00, dimensions variable / applied material: bugs, wood, mirror ball, MDMA

Lesson

Wherever a promulgated belief is taken for granted, it enjoys unquestioned credibility until it is disproved. The first perception of transmitted information scores the most valuable and relevant impact on the audience. In absence of interventions, it may be recycled, eventually culminating in the establishment of universal truth.

Video - 2008 / original duration 2:30 min; dimensions variable

Flags

Ranging from deliberated or coincidentally-emerged geological environments right up to humanly intended constructions, the visual marking of a specific area is a highly ritualistic technique of stimulating the emotion of victory and of justifying preceding actions.
Chiefly not attended by a numerous audience to convey the information of success, the initiator is compelled to preserve the substance of his glorious achievements. In order to secure its capacity in the most efficient manner: the transmission of occurred contents is preferably executed as a pompous and embellishing reinterpretation. The resulting artifacts appear as putative evidence and are exemplified in different types of relicts to outlast the ephemeral character of the initial event.
The conveyance of significance via an indifferent and useless but intensively-transfigured event discloses the contradiction of adaptation and the initial source. After all, it is the reframing reproduction that remains in the consciousness, not the actual origin.

Video – 2008 / looped; dimensions variable; applied material: cardboard, wood, fabric, lamps, ventilation - (eliminated after recording)

Per Astera Ad Astra #1

The installation »Per Aspera Ad Astra #1« is composed of coextensively transmitted videos, associated with referenced images framed by garlands.
      Largely lacking any camera movement, the video-takes act in defined frames: in particular, how they refer to their source material - generated icons to win over a specific audience. The covered and masquerade habit of the performing character is the implication and exaggeration of adapting appearance in a respective environment to convince the recipient. It’s reflecting the act of conquest in a predefined group or a created surrounding by means of changing aspects congenial to the alternation of milieus.
      The video templates are reproduced on silk screen framed by red garlands. Their reproduced propagation quality goes along with the most conventional colour combination of national flags. Hence, the most prevalent colours to transfer an artificial identity-establishment and trust.
      + Read Review on Artslant 07/09

Installation, 2008 — 2010 / Videos - original durations: 0:09-3:53min; dimensions variable / Images - garland on silk screen print; 105 x 135 cm

Per Astera Ad Astra #2

The Piece »Per Aspera Ad Astra #2« is a collection of phone numbers of the 193 recognized governments in the world, bound in an A0 telephone book, and accompanied by a sound installation of recordings of each government‘s reaction to the playing of martial music.
      As well as an extensive research to gain worldwide ruler’s telephone numbers, the installation is a result of an intense desire to get directly in touch with the control centres of power. Further, it is the continuation of the installation »Per Aspera Ad Astra #1«, literally translated “Through Hardship to the Stars”.
      In contradiction to the effortless lightness of turning an almost weightless sheet of paper, which contains the seriousness of a presidential office, the decision to present that collection in a book bound in the monumental Size of A0 (119cm x 84cm) is the corollary of transferring the unreachable significance of those ruling residencies into a pseudo-divine appearance, and to create a sculptural-heavy quality.
      On each side of the book, the capital, office and phone number of each centre of power is presented in a typeface designed by Matthew Carter due to the 100th anniversary of the invention of the telephone. While becoming the most common telephone font because of its excellent readability — even using fast printing techniques and cheap paper — it communicates a certain simplicity and straightforwardness of mass-media production in contrast to the seemingly important value of the content.
      The associated sound installation of the audio book is the execution of the collection by means of calling the 193 governments of the world, while playing Emil Laukien’s bombastic military march “Durch Nacht zum Licht” through the office’s telephone receivers in deafening sound. Comparable with the sculptural, oversized heaviness of the book (in opposition to browsing the pages easily) the facile and ephemeral act of dialling a number disagrees with the boisterous arranged quality of the music. »Per Aspera Ad Astra #2« finally becomes an absurd sound sculpture, which wiretaps the unexpected and various reactions of the presidential headquarters to disturbing march music.
      + Read Review on [in]visible (said, written, thought) 11/09

Sound sculpture – Book installation – 2009 / Telephone book: total size 123x93x7.5cm; weight 86kg; 193 sheets of A0 paper; MDF, linen, hinges / Logo: 123x123cm; wood, vinyl cut / Audio book: total length 9:53min

You know
he's right

Most tangible memorialization associates the enshrinement by physical monument. By means of architectural devices – constructed to all eternity - it preserves a predefined selection of information to sustain the deliverance to posterity. While the respective content combines didactic and theatrical glorification, the overpowering representation aims to impress the audience with its inescapability.

Installation - 2009 / material: wood, carpet, silk fabric, cup, fog; dimensions: 20 m2