"The climate gases surround the Earth like a haze. Similar to the glass roof of a greenhouse, they allow short-wave sunlight through, but reflect the long-wave thermal radiation back to the Earth; the heat is trapped; the planet heats up."
Birgit Jensen's waiting for the bus is multi-layered. First of all, the viewer sees a huge canvas work by the artist, constructed diagonally, which is far too large for the small space and somehow seems out of place. The work shows a landscape, black below, with a thin horizon line above, very far away, dipped in red, orange and yellow tones, on which the bluish-black sky lies. Isolated white dots evoke the association of lights, perhaps hints of human life? The almost surreal, mysterious and inhospitable landscape seems to disappear in its endlessness into the depths of the little booth.
The scene only comes to life when a device specially set up by the Rheinbahn receives radio signals from the existing network that announce the approaching bus, whose stop is directly in front of the booth. Only then does the sign in the shop window rotate so that a QR code becomes visible, which can be scanned with a cell phone by those waiting at the bus stop. At the same time, a bell rings to draw attention to what is happening in the booth.
The video, which is accessed via the QR code, first shows a ring that dissolves with a countdown, marking the start of the tiny spaceships. They rise into the sky and leave the inhospitable landscape, the earth, the cell phone image. The bus has now arrived, the passengers get on, the bus leaves the stop and the sign in the shop window returns to its original position.
This process, which is always the same, repeats itself like a wheel train according to the arrival times of the buses. Installation and bus traffic synchronize for a moment and allow you to transfer to another world. The passengers, who are part of this machinery and this constant process of waiting, leaving and arriving, are transported into the fictional scenery of the video clip with fleeing spaceships in the minutes immediately before the bus arrives. Those waiting become viewers and return to their own reality with the impressions they have gained from the world of Jensen's installation. Maybe more thoughtful, maybe more attentive….
waiting for the bus is on view at KunstBüdchen in Ratingen, Germany through November 12 2023.
