Fernsehturm

2001 • Directed by

Tacita Dean

Dean’s film comprises a forty-four minute static shot looking across the restaurant interior towards the curved wall of windows that allows diners to observe the city from above while they eat. As in many of her films, the artist used an anamorphic lens, resulting in a long rectangular view that constitutes a radial crop of the spherical restaurant space. The single shot was filmed late in the afternoon of the 12 October 2000, during the period when day turns to night, thus recording the slowly changing light at the same time as the thirty-minute rotation of the restaurant. As colours in the sky fade before deepening and blackening, the restaurant interior fluctuates between visibility and obscurity until the fluorescent lights are switched on, transforming the window surfaces from transparent glass to reflecting screens. With the onset of evening, diners appear and music is played for them on an electrical organ.