Nowhere a fixed point
A step into the void. How close are we to taking it? How reliable are the reference points that
we have used for orientation over the course of growing up? A day-dreamy inattention, a sudden
recollection that intrudes in razor-sharp clarity, can become a stumbling block. With one foot still
in the here-and-now, in the current reality, we go astray for a brief moment – long enough to realize
how close the boundaries we normally move in have been placed! And what if true reality – as in
Plato’s parable of the cave – actually does begin on the other side? Heike Weber’s drawings, objects,
videos and installations touch on just such fears and longings. The remarkable thing is how tightly
we must hold on to the facts so as not to lose ourselves in the slipstream of pure visuality. For no
real danger lurks in walking over a floor covered in restless, wavy lines; a wall spanned with
hairnets does not really dissolve into thin air. But how much does the knowledge that the construction
is a solid one help a person suffering from vertigo? Why does it so tempt us to let go, to drop into
this maelstrom, this soft center? If you lose your orientation, you fall out of time. It all goes so
fast, like flying. Or rather, is it the seconds that appear to stretch – seemingly to a standstill?
Every skier recognizes that brief turning point when the fear of speed recedes and gives way to a
feeling of weightlessness outside of time.