GATEDCOMMUNITY.CH
The GATEDCOMMUNITY is a mostly guarded and shielded place in public. It is at the same time visible and invisible. It’s part of a city, of a big and opaque whole, so that no one can be sure if it really exists.
Mysterious things are going on inside of it, this is where its tension lies.
Same as in Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”, an indispensable attraction arises in seeing or observing these spaces that are not accessible to the viewer.
We want to experience them and, even more, discover them. Lionne Saluz and Pablo Stettler capture these moments of observation with their smartphones in order to make them visible to a wider audience.
Even more so, they take the opposite way: Out of the GATEDCOMMUNITY into the world.
Countless photographs were taken over the years, meticulously collected and virtually exhibited vice versa into the COMMUNITY itself. The resulting tension between outside and inside invites the viewer to linger and reflect. Saluz and Stettler create an artistic practice that culminates in Infinite Scrolling, from which viewers can make endless comparisons and draw more and more parallels.
Again and again, unintentional and unforced associations with one’s own life are created. A mirror out of the GATEDCOMMUNITY into the real world. A mirror through which we are looked at and can see back in. Every day, 2 new photos are taken. One from each of the two participating artists.
GATEDCOMMUNITY is always a virtual exhibition space of two artists with formerly restricted access for the public, a closed society, something exclusive. A glimpse into the everyday life of two people. Because no physical space (2013) has been available, GATEDCOMMUNITY initially follows the classical idea of exhibition.
An exhibition that is only accessible in the virtual space.One could also say: from the acquired domain arose a free space, which was filled with the artistic concept of repetition.
Gradually, however, a completely unique work of art emerges.
Saluz and Stettler created and followed precise rules of “membership” in this process. Over the years, the simple 2 photos a day go through several curatorial stages, such as Normal Color, 1 text and 1 image per day, Blacknwhite (iPhone camera filter), Hypercolors (iPhone camera filter), zoomed, camera-flash and
front-selfie-camera.
Welded together through their relationship and the common will to continue, GATEDCOMMUNITY grows constantly from year to year. The project will celebrate its 10th anniversary on April 10, 2024. In total,
7300 photos or moments of observation have been taken over the years.
GATEDCOMMUNITY.CH is a virtual exhibition/web-based long term photography project between
Lionne Saluz and Pablo Stettler made with HTML and smartphones, accessible online at www.gatedcommunity.ch since 2013.
Text by Yannic Pöpperling