Nombre d'or et champ de fréquence

DOCUMENTA 8, KASSEL ALLEMAGNE- AOÛT 1987

Concept

Creation of a virtual work that takes on its true status of existence from the moment of disclosure and dissemination of the information that reveals it. It should be noted that the device put in place by the artist also plays on the fact that this information, which constitutes the work itself, comes into being in another place, on another medium and in another time!

With this unprecedented action, Forest is proposing the concept for a specific type of work which, whether made up of physical elements or not, is in some way a latent 'installation' (a dead memory waiting to happen...) whose meaning is 'activated' by programmed information which cross-references, on site or elsewhere, in real time or not, the device put in place (spatial and temporal localisation and delocalisation).

The practice

In the grounds of Documenta 8, Fred Forest is setting up a wild installation that no one can see, hear or touch. It is a 14,000 hertz frequency field 'built' on the Golden Number. Using the floor plans of the Fredericanium, the Palais de la Ville in whose halls Documenta traditionally takes place every five years, the artist took a ruler and a pencil and traced a rectangle on the floor plan, through the various rooms that make up the Fredericanium, based on the Golden Number. This rectangle was superimposed, so to speak, with its own geometric figure, on the plan itself.

The artist then placed a series of ultrasound transmitters along the virtual lines that crossed the different rooms. On the same day, he placed an advertisement in the local Kassel newspaper under the heading "Lost and Found", claiming to have mislaid some ultrasound transmitters on the Documenta 8 site. At the same time he reported the loss to the Documenta administration. Fifteen days later, 7 of the 32 boxes used were returned to him by post to his address in Paris.

The day after the installation was installed in the grounds of Documenta 8, the major German daily Kölner Stadt Anzeiger no. 193, dated 14-20 August 1987, published a full-page article revealing the existence of the work, making Fred Forest's "invisible" "visible" by the very circulation of this information.

Device

• 32 ultrasonic transmitters powered by R14, 1.5-volt batteries
• An advertisement in the local Kassel newspaper
• An editorial page in the Kölner Stadt Anzeiger on the initiative and responsibility of Amine Haase, who was contacted for this purpose
• A postal mailing of 5,000 items, simultaneously publicising the existence of the work.

• Kölner Stadt Anzeiger N° 193 entre le 14 et 20 août 1987