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Monika Oechsler «High Anxieties»
Monika Oechsler, «High Anxieties», 1998 – 1999
© Monika Oechsler


 
Monika Oechsler «High Anxieties»Monika Oechsler «High Anxieties»

Categories: Installation | Video

Keywords: Dialogue | Montage


 

 Monika Oechsler
«High Anxieties»

In a number of variants, Monika Oechsler's earlier installations staged psychological dynamics and a social constellation in front of the video camera. She expanded the group of three girls in the previous work 'High Achievers' to a group of five in 'High Anxieties'. In each work, one girl is the victim of a process of group dynamics. In the former work, the girl can still defend herself with arguments; but in this 3-channel projection, the girl can take only the role of the defenseless, powerless scapegoat. In the only slightly longer than 3-minute, intensely rhythmic sequence of scenes and sometimes overlapping shifts of perspective, a social process unfolds that involves the viewer emotionally in the verbal and nonverbal staging of fear, latent aggression, and group rituals among girls. In this role-playing, the boundary between fact and fiction remains indefinably in an ambivalent tension that makes the viewer, as voyeur, an accomplice of the group or invites him to identify with the victim.

 

Rudolf Frieling