Wild Signals' 2007 Videoinstallation, HD Video, 9 min. 42 sec, Loop Edition of 5Image 3 of 3

Galerie Barbara Thumm Markgrafenstrasse 68 10969 Berlin Germany (city map) Send E-mail tel +49 (0)30 - 259 429 84 www.bthumm.de

Galerie Barbara Thumm is pleased to announce the first solo show by Canadian artist Kevin Schmidt, presenting his video installation Wild Signals.

Wild Signals shows a stage rig, installed in an uninhabited, snowy mountain landscape, where as if by magic the music and lights start to play. It is the minimalist, five-note sequence of sounds that served to communicate with extraterrestrials in the Hollywood classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (Steven Spielberg, 1977). Spielberg based this on scientific sound and color experiments of the 19th century, as for example Jean-François Sudre’s musical language Solresol: the model of a universal, tone-based system of communication.

In Kevin Schmidt’s installation the static scenery is counteracted by various interpretations of the sequence of sounds, the colorful play of the spotlights, and artificial fog patches. Wild Signals is a lonely rave, an imaginary stage, a theatrical event, whereas the viewer solely witnesses the spectacle and is left with his own expectations. Wild Signals is a mediation between technology's artificial relationship to nature and the individual's own capacity to meet these terms.

We like to thank Catriona Jeffries Galleries, Vancouver for the kind collaboration.