Waiting for the Dial Tone.
Catalogue text by Ute Noll

It is night. Lights are shining. Dangers are lurking. A car is driving aimlessly around. A lone house appears, brightly lit, dark windows barred. Cries are fading in the night, and the phone does not have a dial tone any longer.

The artists April Gertler, Barak Reiser and Gianluca Maver are intrigued by the night. They often set out - independent of one another - to photograph places and objects at night. The night is their common theme.

The artists have re-edited their photos into sequences that can be viewed individually or in relation to one another; according to a set order or in a subjective way; without a beginning or an end; as a loop; with main and auxiliary pictures; and a common title: Waiting for the dial tone.

In most photos there is nothing happening. Deserted pictures determine the rhythm of the image sequence, and the few protagonists have fear written across their face. Details hint at a crime. The associations triggered in the viewer consolidate to form a thriller.

The motifs appear like a film set; a stage at night; and the viewer hears noises, smells  odours and senses  moods; unreal, uncanny or eerily beautiful. These sensations are the results of memories which are evoked in the viewer by the light in each image, the colours, the composition, the perspectives and the specific places depicted.

With, Waiting for the dial tone, April Gertler, Barak Reiser and Gianluca Maver have experimented: none of the three artists chose their own motifs for this project, but let the others edit his/her archive and make the selection.

Their fascination with the night and light is common to all three of them - yet, in their conceptual and technical approach, the artists differ. As an artist group they have created an independent body of work, which is more than the sum of its individual motifs.