investigating the opinions of many individuals. The interaction with different individuals in the planning and execution of the artwork also furthers a new form of contemporary existentialism. This can involve endless discussions with authorities, permissions, agreements with the region, a process that simultaneously highlights a growing tendency in contemporary art to articulate existential issues. In a variety of ways, the involvement of others in Walde's projects leads to exploratory narratives of their identity.
Whether provocative, seductive, entertaining or funny,
the situations, performative interactions and events
that the artist presents, emphasise a more experiential
and less mediated relation with various life experiences,
as they refocus our attention towards a
more intersubjective connection with various cultural,
social and political realities, away from the artist
as central performer and the singularity of the ego
as the pivotal vehicle of creative communication.
The ongoing series of works collectively titled
Loosing Control is perhaps the closest the
artist comes to dealing directly with reality. None of
these works are invented scripts, nor are they staged
or playfully transformed into spectacular and entertaining
gags. They are a result of a close observation
of life. Particularly poignant is the schizophrenia video
piece: a projection depicting jerky movements of
a man walking through a highly frequented area of
Vienna, all the while jumbling words and talking in
a strange language, understandable only to himself.
The audio element of the video is an actual documentation
of a man Walde saw on the street and relentlessly
followed over a course of several days. Then
there is the man who enters a Berlin metro station,
clad only in an apron, and proceeds to intently sweep
the aisles. On the Chatelet bridge in Paris, a girl is adjusting
her skirt twirling it around and around. Is she
alone, is she going to jump or just continue adjusting
her skirt on the bridge? Or the teenage girl in a Vienna
tram obsessively chipping off small particles from a
Styrofoam panel. What is her story? Walde does not
offer us a narrative, only a whisper of the reality
around us, one that we customarily miss in our busy
lives. Not glossy, not decorative, just a glimpse of
the life and Iives we so often neglect to notice. Walde mistrusts metaphors and the search for universal
deep meanings. It is, anyway, questionable if these
exist unless harnessed to a dogmatic approach to
the world. In an age of information, so compromised
with "spin", the stability of any "truth" is highly
questionable.
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