Lenz forms part of the four-part Firewall exhibition, exploring the concept of doors.

Typically doors are viewed as human inventions. However they precede and transcend the human world. Not only do they appear in the natural world, amongst animals and insects, but they are also found in the physical world of the atmosphere. It is the interrelationship between their human and non-human occurrence that is the focus of Firewall. The term Firewall characterises one function of a door, namely its immunological qualities, keeping danger at bay while protecting the contents. It explores this through an imaginary descent from heights of the atmosphere through a layer of doors down to ground level.

Lenz explores the concept of doors using the image of clouds as doors, doors that hover above and shroud the planet. Shot from a helicopter 3km above sea level, it is an adaptation of the 1836 novella Lenz by Georg Buchner.

Projected onto a 5m wide screen hovering above the audience, viewers are able to see the cloudscape by scaling a large staircase opposite the screen that is sinking unevenly into the floor.

Lenz is an experimental component of the Nebula project.

Catalogue Essay

Project DirectorDennis Del Favero

Programmer: Rob Lawther

Project Funding: Australia Council for the Arts

2014

Single channel video installation

Video. 3.30 minutes. BW. Stereo

  • Tactical Imagery, Sydney College of the Arts, Sydney, 2015
  • Firewall, William Wright Artists Projects, Sydney, 2014

Director and Designer: Dennis Del Favero
Cinematography: Nathan Tomlinson
Script: Adapted by Dennis Del Favero from Lenz by Georg Buchner
Video and Audio Engineer: Rob Lawther
Music: Kate Moore
Voice-Over: Sacha Horler
Staircase: Wild Sets
Installation Modelling: Jessica Dawkins