Single Channel Video Loop 2008. Color. DV PAL. Duration: 16 min 22 sec.
This video, which is intended to be shown in an eternal loop, shows a drive through middle class suburbia somewhere in Scandinavia. See excerpt of video.
(...) "The exhibition's main work, The Diary of the Unknown Consumer (2004 - 2008) explores consumer-society's, the media and entertainment culture's grip and power over man. The work consists of three parts, two video-projections and an installation designed as a corridor. The first wall projection shows a residential area with well-kept house in straight rows. It is Christmas. The landscape is covered in snow and the dark windows are illuminated by seasonal decorations. The camera's monotonous drive along the road evokes a feeling of sitting in the backseat of a car, as one did as a kid and fantasizing about who lived behind the windows and how they really felt. It seems conform and confined." (...)
Excerpt from a review by Kari J. Brandtzæg, published in Norwegian daily newspaper Dagbladet 19.11.2008. The full text (in Norwegian) is available as a pdf-download at the bottom of this page.
First shown in a different version at Lightsilver, Beaconsfield, London in 2005. Later reworked and shown together with The Diary of the Unknown Consumer (installation) and The Diary of the Unknown Consumer (video) at a solo show at UKS, Oslo in Nov - Dec 2008, and at Skånes Konstförening, Malmö in Feb 2009.
Special thanks to Patrik Härenstam.
Review by Kari J. Brandtzæg, Dagbladet 19.11.08 (in Norwegian)