Forecast (Installation Part I)

UKR Ruhrding GE A B Meyers 2021 c Daniel Sadrowski 3203
UKR Ruhrding GE A B Meyers 2021 c Daniel Sadrowski 3186
UKR Ruhrding GE A B Meyers 2021 c Daniel Sadrowski 3224

In the square outside Gelsenkirchen main station, large banners display the phrase: “Always Rehearsing Never Performing”. These giant posters designed by the American artist and composer Ari Benjamin Meyers (*1972) can be put into relation to life in general as much as to the work processes involved in producing an exhibition. Where does a rehearsal end and an artwork begin? How does forecasting a future event influence the reality of the present? Or: what effects do current climate predictions have on our ideas of and feelings about the future?

On the other side of the square, a red neon sign can be seen through a shop window. It is mounted on an wall inside the space and displays the title of the exhibition: Forecast. Inside the brightly kept shop, visitors can listen to a 60-minute sound and text composition while a semi-transparent film covering the shop windows steers their attention towards the everyday happenings in the pedestrian zone. Against the background of an instrumental soundscape that gets more and more dramatic and polyphonic, a female voice describes the invention of the weather forecast, climate disasters, the fate of the earth and of the human race. The installation starts every full hour but is also open to visitors at any time irrespective of when it begins. Outside opening hours, the indoor neon glows and interacts with the outdoor banners forming in a silent, cautionary duet.

The installation Forecast is an adaptation of part one of the eponymous stage play that Meyers produces for Volksbühne Berlin.


Festival

The installation Forecast (Installation Version/ Part I) was developed in the context of the exhibition Ruhr Ding: Klima and was on view from 26.5—27.6.2021 at Gelsenkirchen Central Station.

Michael Chiu 4992 Artist ©

Ari Benjamin Meyers

Originally trained as an opera conductor and composer, Ari Benjamin Meyers' work explores forms of performance, production, and perception of music.