First Aid – Test Series 1-10

Maria Anna Dewes + Myriam Thyes, 4-channel video installation, 4 x UHD stereo, 15:10 at least, loop.

Staged „test series” address interpersonal relationships and social conditions. Care and violence, affirmation and rebuke, giving or withdrawing support: One person corrects or disrupts the attitude of another; actions are helpful or harmful, gentle or authoritarian, determined, hesitant, clumsy, tender, assaultive … Sections of people in action are combined with sculptures of human limbs and small model dolls. Living and dead objects mix, proportions are shifted. After one minute, the gently cross-faded test series on all four channels are interrupted for five seconds by an “orange wall” from which a hand emerges from a central hole, accompanied by hammer blows that strengthen a scaffolding. Surreal elements and exaggerations, the rhythm of the video editing and the spatial 4-channel installation reinforce the reflection of interpersonal and social power mechanisms.