Ground
Multimedia Installation 2013/2014
As the final part of her architectural trilogy and with the support of the Einstein Foundation, Anke Eckardt created a series of site specific installations entitled GROUND.






In this project Anke Eckardt examines ground, and/or groundlessness, as ambiguous signifiers. The expression ‘to have one’s feet on the ground’ signifies stability, ease and order, and suggests that things are under control. Ground, in the sense of reference point, crops up in the early days of phenomenology with German philosopher Husserl and in a significantly different way also with Vilém Flusser. In his philosophical autobiography ‘Groundless’, he wrote about the loss of ground, about an ego hovering over the abyss. Like many others, Flusser emigrated from Europe during the Nazi era and spent most of his life as part of the diaspora. In ‘Vampyrotheutis Infernalis’, Flusser analyzes a vampire squid in the deep sea, a floating, bottomless ‘otherness‘ and draws a line to human psychology.
The GROUND is in motion. Thus, in the installation, it moves any visitor who stands on it. GROUND consists of two layers of concrete lawn edging stones, which are used in the EU to delimit green spaces in public areas. Rows of concrete elements slide past each other, while individual concrete elements move vertically in slow motion. The ground’s motion can be felt thanks to the visitor’s sense of equilibrium (balance); it can also be seen and heard. Depending on the sensitivity of the individual, a visual loss of the fixed point in space can be experienced. The grinding, pushing, bouncing, vibrating and creaking of the material in motion produces a range of tonal qualities in various degrees of roughness and triggers not only associations with earthquakes, with shifting tectonic plates, but also with more diffuse sensations of losing control.
GROUND was exhibited among others at Skaņu Mežs as part of the European Capitals of Culture in a building of the botanical garden in Riga and at Bethanien as part of CTM Festival in Berlin (2014). The installation was awarded with an Honorary Mention in the VIDA AWARD 16.0 in Madrid, Spain.





