The Seven Heavenly Places Anselm Kiefer Analysis
As an example of a sublime installation we could describe the one titled “The Seven Heavenly Places” by Anselm Kiefer as the scale and the theme have strong symbolic extensions, associated with the sense of the highness.
The installation includes large architectural constructions (towers of up to 18 meters high) and large-scale paintings which illustrate Elijah ascending to heaven. The towers are made of ruined concrete blocks of abandoned buildings and parts of shipping containers, representing the obsolete samples of an automated construction. As the title highlights, the tower represents a path to God which is represented to be full of obstacles. Like a post-apocalyptic scenery, or remnants of a long-gone civilization, this installation …show more content…
Each video shows a male figure. The male figure (the “angel”) is captured at different places and movements towards water (submerging , remerging, diving into the water’s surface, hovering over it). The five videos play simultaneously, and each is repeated on a continuous loop.The ingenious combination of factors creates a disorienting whole (the life-size scale of the angels, the shifted soundtrack, the reduced speed, order and sensation of these sequences) which imposes an overriding sense of the sublime.
Although the “angels’s” action seems simple, it becomes clear that the sequences are projected in slow motion. In addition, the sequences run backwards or forwards, upside down or the right way up. Underwater sounds and noises (waves crashing) not synchronizing with the video and slow motion scenes intensified by continuously changing colours from red to green and blue, occur in a continuous loop.
Emmanuel Kant (1790) describes the sublime as referring to things which are formless or which ‘have form but, for reasons of size, exceed our ability to perceive such …show more content…
The work evokes the dual nature of the sublime. The instinct of survival which is triggered against the image of drowning while, at the same time, the viewer goes through passages of wonder and feelings of transcendence.
It is well known that the media make a wide use of the sublime. Media coverage of the 9/11 (World Trade Center attacks) is a concrete example of how sublime is used by the media, as sublime aesthetics can arguably be seen in pictures (photographs and video captures) of the attacks.
Watching the media coverage of the attack playing over and over again, one feels small, weak and terrified, and in every means captured by the sight of the blazing building. As if they were experiencing an once-in-a-lifetime experience, many locals felt the strong impulse to take a picture or a video of the collapsing
The installation includes large architectural constructions (towers of up to 18 meters high) and large-scale paintings which illustrate Elijah ascending to heaven. The towers are made of ruined concrete blocks of abandoned buildings and parts of shipping containers, representing the obsolete samples of an automated construction. As the title highlights, the tower represents a path to God which is represented to be full of obstacles. Like a post-apocalyptic scenery, or remnants of a long-gone civilization, this installation …show more content…
Each video shows a male figure. The male figure (the “angel”) is captured at different places and movements towards water (submerging , remerging, diving into the water’s surface, hovering over it). The five videos play simultaneously, and each is repeated on a continuous loop.The ingenious combination of factors creates a disorienting whole (the life-size scale of the angels, the shifted soundtrack, the reduced speed, order and sensation of these sequences) which imposes an overriding sense of the sublime.
Although the “angels’s” action seems simple, it becomes clear that the sequences are projected in slow motion. In addition, the sequences run backwards or forwards, upside down or the right way up. Underwater sounds and noises (waves crashing) not synchronizing with the video and slow motion scenes intensified by continuously changing colours from red to green and blue, occur in a continuous loop.
Emmanuel Kant (1790) describes the sublime as referring to things which are formless or which ‘have form but, for reasons of size, exceed our ability to perceive such …show more content…
The work evokes the dual nature of the sublime. The instinct of survival which is triggered against the image of drowning while, at the same time, the viewer goes through passages of wonder and feelings of transcendence.
It is well known that the media make a wide use of the sublime. Media coverage of the 9/11 (World Trade Center attacks) is a concrete example of how sublime is used by the media, as sublime aesthetics can arguably be seen in pictures (photographs and video captures) of the attacks.
Watching the media coverage of the attack playing over and over again, one feels small, weak and terrified, and in every means captured by the sight of the blazing building. As if they were experiencing an once-in-a-lifetime experience, many locals felt the strong impulse to take a picture or a video of the collapsing