schnee stock parade
deutsche Fassung
snow stick parade
english version
 
Oberwart 1998
 
 
textes:
peter nesweda 
franz niegelhell
vitus h. weh
parade
 
back
 
home

Vitus H. Weh

Art as an Aid to Vision


With only a simple mirror mechanism medicine has been able to prove that if eyes are held absolutely still, they go blind. This means that the human retina only reacts to changes in stimulus. If nothing new happens and everything stays the same then nothing is seen. 
This experiment can easily be transposed onto the way we perceive reality. Objects we see continually become invisible. People de-senstise and get used to everything. Eventually even noise is ignored. Since people have 
started to zap through so many TV programmes, they have become blind to the TV screen and anyone sitting too long on a park bench finds it hard to get up. 

One of the most important roles in art today is to provide protection against this kind of blindness. Whilst there are many things that brighten up our everyday lives like flower beds or holidays, circus, sport and the church as balsam for our souls, the only way to retain our sense of perception is to probably give up alcohol and to engage in art. An example of this is when Christo and Jeane-Claude wrapped up the Reichstag with silver paper in Berlin in July 1995 and for many people it was the first time it actually became visible. It was the "wrapped-up" Reichstag that led millions of people to reconsider the history of the building and what to expect of the future. The wooden construction built a few meters above the main sqare in Wiener Neustadt that same year had the same effect. This was also a temporary art work constructed by a Japanese artist Tadashi Kawamata and his team. It was suddenly possible to have a changed view of the well-known and to discover new perspectives. (1) 

The Snow Stick Parade by Andreas Lehner from Oberwart offers a very similar chance. Although he is also concerned with the visual effects of the striped pattern created by the long rows of sticks, and that there are more sticks at certain points, the main concern is the fact that the town is viewed and interpreted differently. In certain cases art can function as a catalyst. In the same way things enter a catalyst and come out differently, art tries to provoke and release the possibility for creative reactions. 
Art that is thus interpreted works from within an imaginary space from which concrete action can be considered and then taken. 
Lehner´s sign posting in the town of Oberwart are easily followed similar to underlining a text. An underlined text emphasises certain points and it is up to each individual to read and interpret. This means concretely that all the inhabitants and people, who frequent the town everyday, have the chance to perceive their accustomed daily environment as a variable possibility. 
Even though the area Andreas Lehner has marked out with his snow stick parade (2) is in the centre of Oberwart it is not used appropriately and new negotiation concerning its use as a community living space should take place. Naturally everyone is asked to participate in the discussion. 

(1) For further e.g. or art projects during town rebuilding refer to "Auf der Baustelle". In Markus Wailand, Vitus H. Weh (Hg.) Zur Sache Kunst am Bau. A Manual. Vienna 1998, pp 158-167 

(2) It should be noted that for future tendencies of art in public spaces, snow sticks are also a fitting metaphor as they meant to make streets and paths visible even when snow drifts threaten to blind.