Concept/Idea (English)

English: Installation with 30 light boxes as a flip book celebrating the 125th anniversary of the Arlberg railroad tunnel.

Location: Blisadonnatunnel between Langen am Arlberg and Kloesterle
The installation can only be seen from the train.

Richard Jochum shows a short video with a staged portrait of the old emperor of Austria, Franz Josef. The emperor looks friendly towards the eye of the beholder/camera, while kindly lifting his hat and greeting the viewer with a smile ever so gently. The video lasts for 2 seconds only and has been split up into 30 single digital frames which have been printed on translucent foil and put into 30 light boxes. The installation works like a flip book nicely placed to be seen by the travelers from the window of the passing train.

One could imagine the viewers to start a conversation such as: Wasn't this just the old emperor? And those who have missed the short moment of display answering: Whom? Or: Which one? In the process of time people will have heard from the project and the travelers will be waiting for the friendly greeting fromt he windows of their train.

Franz Josef was co-responsible for one of the biggest tunnel construction projects of the 19th century, the Arlberg railroad tunnel with more than 14 kilometer in length. Hence, it made sense to pick his image for an art project playfully celebrating the anniversary. On a deeper level, the project plays with old Austrian sentiments: as a nation that is still proud of its history, the great Empire, yet knowing, that it's grandness has become part of the past. The brief flare-up of "history", i.e. an image from the past as it is presented by the light box installation makes up exerience a ride on a ghost train in a luna park: aiming to say, history is something that flashes us from the past.
What is the celebration of an anniversary turns hereby into an artistic intervention with a pinch of humor: with kind regards from the late emperor.

Concept: Richard Jochum
Emperor Franz Josef: Lucien Samaha