Elevator Pitch
Installation, Experience /2016
Project done together with Bettina Schwalm as Present–Futures
When was the last time you thought about your movement? The horizontal or the vertical?
Within the span of a 40 second elevator ride, we took a fearless group of visitors into space. The moment the door closed, a rocket launched, and the spinning world got smaller and smaller beneath their feet. Within the installation, a sound piece with the voices of Astronauts telling about their experience in space filled the room that introduced one of the Present-Futures working principles called the ‘Overview Effect’.
The ‘Overview Effect’ describes the cognitive shift in awareness reported by astronauts during spaceflights. During this unique experience of viewing our planet from an orbital perspective as a pale blue dot suspended in the black void protected by only a paper-thin layer, astronauts would get the urge to take on an active role in the creation of a planetary society and to protect this fragile blue dot.
This transformation in attitude and shift in perspective is one of many things Present–Futures explores and strives to create as an effect within our work.
A short experience that Present–Futures facilitated as an embodiment of their practice as developed over a year long post-grad research program. Although poorly documented, the process would lay the foundation for what would become Present–Futures.
