Haven't we always wanted to know what happens in a black box? We are familiar with Luzia Simons' scanograms, these lushly ephemeral pictures of flowers that resemble painting, but also with the "Blacklist" series of works, which showcases hybrid creatures in the fictitious transition from flora to fauna. It was only natural to stage such a "terra incognita" now also on the time axis, switching from the scanner to the camera &ndash; whereby the video montage "Blackbox" proves to be an even more serious violation of our visual habits. It is no longer the mutation of the appearance that makes us doubt the identity of these beings, but their new attribute: the life impulse that has suddenly awakened from within.
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But what are they doing, these flowers fixed in the center of a dark box? What is holding them? Are they rooted to the spot? Do they float? Do they defy gusts of wind? Do they breathe? Do they experience the misery of all matter? Do they give signs? Do we see a dialogue that lacks a partner, a communication that has been prevented? Do we see the zeitgeist of the twenty-first century?
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So what happens in this "Blackbox"? Nothing. It is an unhoused gesture of a restless circulation. Nothing escapes its own vanitas, the ambivalence of identity and continuity that knows no end state.
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Werner Knoedgen