--- Präsentationshinweise

Die Videokomposition wurde mit einigen Ausnahmen täglich von 8 bis 24 Uhr zwischen Infos des eBoard Congress Center Basel, Die Videos haben eine Soundspur, werden hier jedoch auf dem e-Board ohne Ton gezeigt, so dass die Basler Stadtgeräusche ausnahmsweise den Sound bilden.

Mit ursprünglicher Tonspur waren obige Werke einzeln und mit noch weiteren Videos und Büchern des Künstlers in der Mediathek der FHNW zum Vergleich und vertiefenden Studium einzusehen (Montag bis Freitag von 10 bis 13 Uhr auf dem Screen der Mediathek im Hochhaus der Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst FHNW, 8. OG, Freilager-Platz 1).

--- Notes on Design

Subsumed beneath the title of “Cosmic Strings” into a group on one channel are parts of four videos taken from the years 1999–2007, 13.40 min., which can be seen on the eBoard of the Congress Center Basel.  Tomas Eller has done this special composition thanks to the invitation of videocity curator Andrea Domesle and in reaction to the site. The videos have a soundtrack, but here during videocity.bs they will however be shown up on the eboards and screens without any original film sound whatsoever, so that the living sounds of Basel city shall provide them with a unique sound track.   The original formats are different, some of them 4:3, some 16:9. The video depicting the sleeping person is in black and white. 

--- Notes on Presentation

With certain exceptions, the videos are screened daily from 8:00–24:00 hours interspersed between the regular messages shown on the Congress Center Basel e-board. 

The above works are also available for viewing and comparing with their original soundtracks  together with further videos in the FHNW Mediatheque (from Monday till Friday 10:00–13:00 on the screen of the Mediathek, FHNW Academy of Art and Design, 8th floor, Freilager-Platz 1.


Beneath the title of "Cosmic Strings I" Tomas Eller has selected four of his videos for the screening on the eBoard of the Congress Center Basel, and folded them as it were together into one single piece: again and again we  witness the futile attempted landing of a helicopter over snow-covered mountain terrain. Betwixt all this, stark  searchlights flash on and off. There are also sequences of a sleeper whose surroundings are caught in a torsional moment or of pressurized moving motorcycle pistons (taken from the video entitled "Brain Fucker" created in 1999).

It was the intersecting traffic axes around the bustling Messeplatz which first inspired the artist to make such a composition of individual films folded together. Hence "Cosmic Strings I" is most perfectly adapted to the original place in time which inspired its genesis. It includes the chance  momentary perceptions of the passers-by within its compositional calculation, which can range from but a few seconds to a longer stay, for just one-time or for a cumulative daily summation views. Equipped but with such fragmentary perceptual moments alone, one is perfectly able to  assemble one's own film in the mind.

"Cosmic Strings" creates an atmosphere of flow between dream and reality, between surface and space, between event and eternity, between this world and the beyond. Summoning somnambulistic doubt.

Andrea Domesle  (translation: Christopher Haley Simpson)