Half a Train | 2007

At a dance festival in Vienna in summer 2005 we met and developed a friendship.
In early 2007 we began to have regular contact through emails and internet chats.
We found ourselves both in in-between places vis a vis our home and professional situations. After a few internet photo/chat exchanges we agreed upon sending each other a new picture every day by email. At that time there was no agreement about content or the duration of our commitment, there was no end result expected, only curiosity and openness.

We began in March of 2007 sending each other these daily pictures, which documented ordinary details as well as special moments, our location on the planet, surrounding environments, emotional states, always unpredictable but always functioning within the conversation put forth by the accumulation of images. We sent each other these pictures with no captioning or additional text.

Through this time we began to get a sense of each others perspectives. We learned simple details of each other's lives while also witnessing the evolution of a conversation, a manner of speaking to and about looking and photographing. From revealing intimate moments to each other, to the act of public self-portraiture, as well as in the presentation of the work to the public, we encountered different levels of performativity and presentation.

A few months into our durationally undefined project, we had the opportunity to present it at a dance festival in Berlin later, in august 2007. We continued to exchange photographs as we had been since March, for the total of about six months. It was in Berlin that we first had an overview of the photographs together. We made decisions about the chronology and editing of the slideshows, and installation of the project on site.

Half a Train was first shown as part of Tanz Im August's SommerBar, the Festival Center Lounge at Podewil. We wanted to bring the images out into a public context without losing the sense of intimacy that was at to root of the project. It was situated just besides the box office in a somewhat remote and normally unused area of the lobby. The viewer would have to know it was there or else accidentally discover it while queuing up for performance tickets.

Tour

14-08-2007 tanz im august, sommer.bar


project by :
David Bergé, DD Dorvillier