VOLKSEMPFÄNGER: ARTWORKS BY dAVID K.: 2014/02

20140202

ELEMENTS OF CONTROL - PLURAL MONOLITH

This is the first published image of the artist david K's recent sojourn, which started in Moscow and concluded in Berlin in the fall of 2013.

The 'triptych' simultaneously depicts three significant elements of control from modern history in a single frame: a closed-circuit surveillance camera mounted to the side of the former Nazi Ministry of Aviation (or Reichsluftfahrtministerium), seen through a hole in the still-extant Berlin Wall standing on Wilhelmstrasse.

The physical and psychological weights of stone elements in this work are reminiscent of the title of Dr. Alexei Monroe's monograph Pluralni monolit (Plural Monolith), which served as the photograph's de facto name during processing.

david K.

TRIPTYCH [ELEMENTS OF CONTROL]

Chromogenic photograph on Fuji Crystal Archive

14 x 11 inches

2013

The Volksempfänger ("people's receiver") was a radio receiver developed in 1933 to make radio technology affordable to the general public for propagandistic reasons. Despite the nature of the broadcasts the radio was intended to receive, the evil genius of the device was the efficient nature in which messages could be directly disseminated to the masses. The internet is the modern equivalent of the Volksempfänger - it costs little, it reaches millions of people, and one should be very, very critical of the rubbish emanating from it.