«Coast to Coast» by Dominik Stauch

Last year the artist Dominik Stauch, from Thun in Switzerland, developed a brilliant work in the context of videocity.bs-Parcours for the eBoard on St. Jakobsturm, thereby first discovering his own passion for realising such works on large scale electronic displays. Thanks to the eBoard of the Congress Center Basel we have been able to offer him once again a proverbially great artistic challenge.    videocity.bs 2016 will host a special premiere screening of his most current video entitled "Coast to Coast" which was completed in 2016.  Like many of his videos, it is broadly based on an examination of the theme of space. Although it came about independently and was first intended for an interior art space, it is fascinating to witness how the scale and the public domain have posed a greater challenge to the work: What influence does the effervescent life of a trade square bustling with pedestrians, the trams crossing and the motorcars driving by, as well as the architecture of the buildings opposite, have on the autonomous composition of the artist? What is the impact of this presentational format?

Dominik Stauch utilizes a formal language which is based, unlike any other stylistic direction, upon construction, non-representationalism, independence from our mortal world and timelessness. He has used the cinematic animation of colour fields and the soundtrack to make further developments in the sphere of classical concrete art. He thus creates dynamic, process-based, multiple spatial  compositions.   

But now we are interested in how "Coast to Coast" will actually function on the eBoard without its original soundtrack and how the aesthetic concept will thereby be altered. We allow Dominik Stauch's animation of his concretist film composition to merge with the liveliness of a bustling city road junction, in performative contingency. The reaction of the artist to the suggestion of the curator Dr. Andrea Domesle was thus: "i could well imagine that the movements and mixing colours could take on an urban feeling.   I find your reflections concerning the mirroring exciting. this will be quasi much more than creating a new soundtrack, as it will also be an appropriation of the surrounding architecture and the urban space. and the title would also suit well: coast to coast." (Dominik Stauch).    The reflections on the surface of images, which otherwise interfere with the proper reception of art works, the loud noises, even the traffic – all of what is normally excluded from the gallery sphere – will be brought explicitly into play and in great concentration.    The sometimes grey overcast or radiant blue sky, with or without the passing clouds, the pronounced networked structure of the trade fair buildings opposite, become distinctly mirrored in the black image fields, only to be outblended or to reappear through their continual animation. It might be that the observers are tempted to compare the street rhythms with those of the colour fields, and their at times slower, sometimes faster, unfurling, fan-like swellings and subsidences. Does the tram screeching round the corner follow the same curvatures as in the video? The bikes moving in snake formation and the dots of crossing pedestrians, do they not correspond to the staccato compositional lines?  The taxis arriving , are they not also colour signals? The connections appear fortuitous, created out of pure and happy whim.  Daily city routine now behaves as the forming principle inside a concrete art piece – which is exceptional within this minimalised stylistic field. The artist's title of "Coast to Coast“ metaphorically underlines his intention to show how fluid movement and the continuity of change are the main features involved in connections between paired large elements.