Wir haben aufgehört die Regenbögen zu zählen
Künstler*innenhaus Wendenstrasse, Studio45, Hamburg, 2024
The blue of the sky becomes a roaring ocean in which the waves rise like fountains, as if they want to touch the clouds.
Drawn by gravity, contrails fall like drops to the ground. It remains impressive that the silver jets that leave them behind
in seconds remain in the air and increase their acceleration to the limits of their load capacity, rarely falling from the sky.
Acceleration due to gravity is usually expressed in G units, so that its numerical value directly indicates the inertial force
in units of the weight of the body in question. In the first moments of flight, a fascinating spectacle unfolds,
enveloping him in an apparent contradiction.
Contrary to the direction of acceleration, it presses the pilots into their seats.
This apparent force arises from the forward motion of the aircraft, an energy that sets the pilots' bodies
in a choreographed dance with the air. At this moment, it becomes clear that it is not an external force
acting on him, but the sensual manifestation of his own inertia, revealed in this fleeting moment of takeoff.
When humans make the dream of flying come true, they move on the narrow ridge between ecstasy and unconsciousness.
It is an act of rebellion against the laws of gravity, an ode to humanity's boundless longing for the stars.
A complex interplay of physical forces and sheer human willpower to defy the effects of acceleration.
Your field of vision begins to narrow and colors fade. The blood pressure in your head is severely restricted,
your blood is drawn into your legs, your vision becomes smaller and smaller and smaller and it is as if you are looking through sunglasses
that are very dirty on the inside, your vision is dark and blurred.
In an attempt to gain the upper hand at this moment just before fainting, pilots train in huge rotating centrifuges until they black out, using controlled breathing.
Reality loses its fixed contours, the state in which space and time lose their meaning. Everything around me becomes
a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors and movements. An uncontrollable tumbling that seems to blur the boundaries between heaven and earth.
My hand tries to cling to fractal memories, but I lose my grip on the fluid surface. The landscape becomes a frenzied whirlpool
of shapes and patterns. Flashes of light flicker before my eyes like ecstatic vortexes.
Sounds are distorted, delayed, as if they are penetrating a space of shimmering veils. A strange humming and pulsing
cuts through the air. The living painting in which I find myself abstracts itself, in a constant flow of change.
Fragments of reflection find their way into the orbit of my consciousness, another attempt to gain a firm grip fails,
accompanied by a muffled cry that seems to shatter the walls of imagination with its echo. Movements of thoughts fluttering around uncontrollably,
like a chicken that has had its head cut off, running around without direction or destination but still full of lively aspirations
of a dominant influence on kinetics and senses. That is exactly what happened in this scenario. Suddenly, a violent jolt shoots through me,
and the intensity of this dizzying whirl subsides. The world around me stabilizes, the colors return to their normal intensity,
and I find myself back in the reality of my cockpit with all its input options and control mechanisms. A fleeting moment of ecstasy,
captured between the boundaries of the visible, the invisible, and my subconscious, remains as a memory of an experience of power, space, and time.
The universal gift of clumsiness makes every human achievement an incredible miracle.
John Paul Stabb
Essay for the Work of Niklas Junker: Funky Chicken
Jo-Hendrik Hamann, Januar 2024
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