Eichelmann / Rust's works looks at instances of fortification from a
variety of perspectives, historical, psycho- and sociological, military
and subjective. During the summer they exhibited a series of works which
have developed over the last two years under the title 'Camouflage'.
'Camouflage' exists as a number of discrete video pieces and photographs
which for their exhibition at Union Projects were re-assembled as one
projection and three monitors. The installation is only one instalment
of Eichelmann / Rust's on-going project which can - like modular furniture
- be set up into entirely different scenarios.
A recurring focus of Eichelmann / Rust's installation is the architecture
and lay-out of London's Docklands. This corporate peninsula becomes
emblematic of latter day fortification. A trio of videos features key
texts on concepts of fortification, from 19th century French architect
and theorist Viollet-Le-Duc to an extract of Machiavelli's 'The Prince'
and Sigmund Freud's elaborations on the psychological mechanisms of
defence formulated in his seminal essay 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle'.
The texts are combined with video sequences filmed on the Docklands
Light Railway, a walk around the perimeter of the Isle of Dogs and a
'contact improvisation' dance act performed within the monitored confines
of Canary Wharf and are underpinned by music especially written and
performed by Jonathan Owen Clark.
Another key feature of 'Camouflage' is the role of new technologies
in their advancement of real yet immaterial fortifications. The work
provides a detour through the effects of computerisation and visits
crucial sites of the implementation of surveillance technologies on
a global scale. As the architecture of these installations bears no
intelligible link to its function the viewer is left to wonder at the
geodesic design of Menwith Hill's radomes and the pyramid-cum-space
station lay-out of Fylingdales; contemporary military installations
that in their eccentricities mirror early 19th Century Martello Towers
or the pagodas and tumuli erected during the 2nd World War on Orford
Ness, a site visited by W.G. Sebald on his ramblings in 'The Rings of
Saturn'.
Ethan, Eichelmann / Rust's alter-ego of sorts functions as tour guide
for this journey through times, ideas and histories. Originally a figure
in Douglas Coupland's mid-nineties novel 'Microserfs' Ethan becomes
a fictional anchor who fuses analysis with subjective narrative. Slightly
nerdy and hooked on anti-depressants Ethan, referring to Chess, informs
us that 'In order to learn how to play, you have to play. Analogies
are just part of the truth. They give you an idea. In the end you have
to get in touch with things.'
Eichelmann / Rust's work is analogous to solving chess puzzles; their
project is a constant re-arrangement of pieces which depending on the
opening will attempt to solve a problem that finally, by its very nature
cannot be solved but only circumvented in endless loops.
