in retrospect 2008 meant for the ruin project to discover storytelling. for the whereis103 meeting in december 2007 a big poster of a person spreading thoughts (a kind of poem) to the streets had been created. like a selfportrait, reflection on the own position as a streetartist. and for the illegale in the beelitz tuberculosis hospital ruins, two stencils of patients who had their memories about art and life flow out of their bodies were sprayed and combined with little posters. 2008 poems were also turned into music, resulting in two mini releases of recordings (low quantity for friends only), also some mp3s published on the internet, an experimental attempt to music which meanwhile migrated to the gebirk edition, a play on (electronical) musical images combined with poetry.

2009 then meant some reflection, going back to the beginnings of the project: portrait stencils and images that speak by themselves, e.g. the persons in masks kissing, an image that crossed the limitations of visual storytelling by keeping the space of connotation open. also going back to working on closeup portraits to further work on the possibilities of "old-school" stencils of faces. the first step was to create lots of sketches around these ideas and the second step was to work out an idea for a series. the summer project "signs of life" was happening in italy then, at the reloaded festival for contemporary art, music and culture at the treja national park in monte gelato.

stencils were executed in black and white and freestyle sprayed colours on approx. 50 x 50 cm wood signs and installed around the site of a festival of music and art. they were left there for destruction and theft, like it is usual with the temporary works of streetart.



the project is based on some fragmented ideas:
the effect of abstraction in the communication of emotions
possible functions of signs in utopian modes of society
psychogeography and urban art in a nomadic city
the perception of painting being that of distance and the perception of closeup faces being that of nearness and through that having a conflict in the painting creating an antagonistic visual effect