Richard Hoeck/Heimo Zobernig (1997) was made specifically for the 5th International Istanbul Biennial in 1997 to which Richard Hoeck was invited. Hoeck’s initial proposal was to invite Heimo Zobernig and Hans Weigand to perform as a band in an Istanbul hotel bar. However, this did not happen, and this video was produced instead.

Hoeck and Zobernig conceived the video sequence in relation to two specific Islamic references: the color green considered sacred by most Moslems and the monotonous and intermittent prayer sung by Muezzins. The viewer is confronted by a green projection on a large wall that gradually changes color and an unsettling soundtrack, which consists of sung fragments of nearly equal duration that were asked to sing the standard pitch. The work is a kind of tone sculpture, with the sung fragments, as Hoeck describes, “indirectly echoing the unstable chromatic structure of the video image.”

After listening to the monotonous, wailing-like sound and staring intensely at the green wall, one’s eyes crave the complimentary color. Adding a strange twist to this sequence, Hoeck and Zobernig fulfil this yearning, but it is their eyes that see red when a black and white photograph of the two artists, with flash-stunned eyes, momentarily appears at random intervals. The cumulative aural and visual affect and the formalism of this piece forces one to recognize how two relatively simple things, like the color green and the standard pitch, can be perceived in multiple, but equally valid ways.