The video installation Kaiserbründl refers to a gay sauna in Vienna. This walk-in installation sketches out a space within a space, an entanglement of two cube-like structures that reach into each other, resulting in an open definition of interior and exterior space: The interior space of the larger white room segment doubles as the exterior space for the black room segment that only appears slightly pushed in. An empty corridor takes shape by virtue of the space between the segments, and acts as an entrance to the installation and black room. The black room reflects the intimacy of so-called dark rooms, private rooms, or back rooms.

Unbeknownst to the outside, the black room houses a video projection that is connected with the exterior as the video is visible from both the outside and inside by back projection. The video acts as a membrane, a filter that connects the exterior and interior spaces and shows the sauna’s winter garden: a space characterized by a mirrored wall behind a world of potted plants.

A tracking shot of the mirrored wall captures the intertwining of mirror and plants, creating an image within an image, a reflection of images that repeat themselves within the installation. In this way, the installation itself becomes an extensive image wherein imagination and visibility merge, and what is virtual and what is real orbit around the desire for what is possible and the possibility of realizing those desires. What appears only metaphorically in this image reflection is the consideration of gender within the context of homosexuality: the same as the different.

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Text: Andreas Spiegl