Sitting before the television, at precisely the same time – watching the same show? Hong Kong,nine o’clock in the evening, December 2000. After noticing sudden changes in the light emanating from apartment blocks during his nightlystrolls in Hong Kong, the photographer Georg Aerni created the “TV Time” series. It shows a sequence of façades illuminated by a multitude of tiny boxes, like recurring patterns. Yet degrees ofdifferentiation appear upon closer examination. Fluorescent tubes producing a bluish light contrast with an orange luminosity emitted from other apartments. Some points of distinction derive fromthe aesthetics as well as from the social status of the inhabitants and the neighbourhood in which they live.
These towers endlessly follow the skyline and manifest a precise component of the urbanlandscape, a recurring verticality stretching all the way to the horizon. Hundreds of human presences are inferred without being made visible. The frontal view of these buildings draws us into the apartments,generating an interiority constructed entirely in our imagination. This effect establishes a tension between the spectator as “voyeur” and the spectator as distant observer, detached from thescenes unfolding within. The architecture of the contemporary city confronts Georg Aerni. He reveals here, in part, hisphotographic response to Hong Kong. Through this city, where another wave of accelerated urbanity is occurring within its burgeoning economy, the artist allows us to reflect upon our own ideas ofthe city and to reassess our daily activities in light of the multitude of individuals both within and beyond our immediate surroundings.
Year of production: 1999–2000
Georg Aerni
