Der (—) Turm

In summer 2019 I was artist-in-residence at The Watchtower in Schlesischer Park, Berlin. My project worked with the watchtower’s historical and geographical visibility as monument, landmark and tool of surveillance. In 1987 London-based artist John Smith made the work ‘The Black Tower’; a film addressing the appearance of a mysterious black tower that menacingly stalks the artist across east London. Its process of becoming is facilitated by Smith’s narration encompassing everyday voices that witness the structure’s emergence. The Tower never fully appears in the film, glimpsed, partial and manifesting as hearsay. Reading the work forty years later ‘The Black Tower’ becomes an omen and marker for redevelopment that wields equal power in Berlin and London.

‘The (—) Tower’ is loosely conceived as a response to John Smith’s 1987 work ‘The Black Tower’, whereby listenability rather than visibility is used to explore The Watchtower as an historical and contemporary witness. The audio-work embraces dualistic East and West German approaches to Hörspiel (radio-plays); combining disembodied and didactic experiences.