StartPoint Prize 2016

Ebony Hoorn

Since Blade Runner we have become enamored with dystopian narratives about the future, and all the more so since the world increasingly comes to resemble such a dystopian narrative. Black Sun Rising, an installation by Ebony Hoorn, has a haunting atmosphere. An underground room submerged in UV-lighting is filled with the sour smell of a dying carpet lawn. A window shines in the wall, but a closer look reveals that the shades cover a LCD screen with a view of the sky and trees. We listen to a voice which nonetheless fails to provide any clear reference point regarding time or narrative structure. One thing, however, is clear. The environmental situation is dramatic, and life on earth is a mere shadow of its former self. The narrative presents an echo of memories of a past world. We find ourselves suspended out of time, in a kind of limbo whose gravitational pull is increasingly stronger as it becomes harder and harder to find a way out, or to resist its force.