This art project explores the intriguing world of spies, delving into themes of secrecy, deception, and identity. Through a series of mixed media installations, the project invites viewers to engage with the hidden narratives and covert operations that shape our understanding of espionage. Each piece combines visual elements with interactive components, encouraging participants to uncover layers of meaning and reflect on the complexities of trust and betrayal. Join us on this captivating journey into the shadowy realm of spies and the art that brings their stories to light.

Our Story

I was invited to work in a factory that developed and produced surveillance equipment. This was back in 1976, in Lichtenberg, a few years before I was born.  We were looking at ways to see across thought barriers and experimenting with devices that could aid in trying to see the Other Side of Things.

At the time, this city had the world's most obvious and famous Division, which is why they had us There and Then.  Another resource that was deemed necessary for our work was also widely available: spies.

We chose to work with spies first, since traditionally, spies have a great deal of contact with the Other and have been, at times, known to defect from one side to the other after enough exposure to other ideas and views.  It seemed that some people in that profession were particutarily empathetic and fluid in their approach to new and not-yet-understood things. They also had a tendency to by absolutist. In other words: spies were a susceptible subject which should provide a fast indication of potential in any of our in-development devices.

These ideal test subjects in the D.D.R. also had an ideal opposite, an ideal Other which we could could use as a control and let them observe through our prototype devices: James Bond. Whereas they were real spies, Bond was a fictional character. Whereas they were anonymous nondescript figures about whom no-one knew no-thing, Bond was a dashing mysoginistic zealot whose fame proceeded him everywhere he went. 

Our research and development work went on until early in February of 1982. The higher-ups in charge of approving the budget for our works came to be of the opinion that our devices would only be of use if we could get The Others to use them. They believed in their potential as propaganda mechanisms towards "Integration"; the bosses had no interest in our people coming to understand those Others. We had considered trying to get one of our prototypes into the props department of the new James Bond movie being produced, Thunderball. We spent a number of weeks trying to scale one suitable device down to fit inside a wristwatch, but the task of changing the outlook of a fictional character proved too much for our morale at the time.

Eventually, development was halted and only a small team was kept on to refine our existing prototypes into producable military-grade surveillance equipment capable of allowing people to empatheticly observe and internalise the viewpoints and positions of Others. A few months later, I was born and could no longer take part in the project. In 1989, all the devices were lost in the destruction of sensitive materials by the D.D.R., just prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Fast-forward almost 50 years to 2024 and we find that divisions and their intersections are all around. Exclusivity Bubbles and Echo Chambers are as strong as any concrete barriers. Ideology is no longer necessary and is simply replaced by methodology: no longer is reason needed beyond "because We are We and They are not!". The coin now has a thousand sides and still not one of them faces another.  

My proposal is to use the above fiction as a starting point for research during the residency.  I have often worked using fictions and imaginaries as a base, initially without a set direction or medium. These fictions have lead to installations,  films, performances and also to multidicplinary works incompassing elements of all of those things (eg. 'Sun Moon Lake is a Concrete Box). World-building and character placement/development begin a trajectory and I follow it. 

Working on the fiction above, I am currently exploring a number of found objects (physical and moving image) as materials as well as shooting exploratory motion images.  The narrator character has appeared, but has not yet shown herself clearly. The world she describes and some of her experiences have set a broad course in motion. This is what I would like to develop during the Vilém Flusser residency.