A Fall

In A Fall, Karl van Welden stages a disaster scenario for a single object. A vinyl record is turning on a turntable in a closed room. A rain of ash slowly descends. The whole scene gradually turns dark grey, until the music and movement come to a halt. What remains is a fragile, purposeless object in a monochrome landscape.

This piece arose out of Van Welden’s fascination with volcanoes and the consequences of an eruption. The installation examines our ambiguous attitude towards imminent calamity: our belief or disbelief concerning catastrophes, our fascination with decay. A reminder of death.

• With his Saturn II – City Scape, a street performance that one could view through telescopes from the roof of an office building, the Ghent artist Karl van Welden provided one of the highlights of the 2014 Festival Kanal.