LIFE ON THE DEATH STRIP

My video installation "Life on the Death Strip" is a three-dimensional film concept that the viewer can physically enter. In contrast to the conventional 3-D cinema, which suggests a spatial reality to passive viewers through glasses or other aids, they can move around the room themselves and actively create connections.

Thematically, I was fascinated by the fact that on the death strip of the Berlin Wall people were forced to do an everyday, armed job while the world watched idly.

On the West Berlin side, viewing platforms provided views of the walls. Tourists could glimpse the potentially life-threatening other side of them from a safe distance like a tiger in a zoo. This is where the wall videos were shot.

The contrast between our cozy comfort and a murderous reality that apparently belongs to another world is timeless and has been part of human life for millennia. Only when it is in the past do we slowly begin to recognize it, usually with the firm belief that we have recognized something.

Stefan Roloff