In his work Swiss artist Thomas Julier (*1983, lives and works in Brig and Zurich) investigates the nature of contemporary imagery. His films and photographs always depend on the method of their production and presentation, in which the devices used for recording and playback become an integral part of what is shown. The artist’s most recent work deals with a medial constructed view of the animal. In other works, the camera examines the body and human behavior. Forming the centerpiece of his first institutional solo exhibition in Switzerland is an installation of motion-sensor cameras referring to the modernistic architecture of the Kunsthaus and its environment that create a feedback loop. Bait is used to lure indigenous animals into the range of these cameras that are positioned inside and outside the Kunsthaus. These are hooked up to a system that records video when movement is detected. Live streams of these cameras-cum-traps are projected in the Oberlichtsaal. Hunter in the Void is based on the perspectives of the observer and the observed. Perforations in the glass panes of the Kunsthaus create openings in the building allowing animals free access throughout the exhibition period. The Kunsthaus becomes the camera apparatus, the animals artistic figures; their actual being evades the viewer. Light plays a central role in Hunter in the Void. The projections provide the exhibition’s sole light source apart from the illumination of the decoy’s infrared lights, which are visible to the viewer only in the video transmission. The system’s cameras are adjusted to record only the infrared light sources in the room, which human and animal eyes do not detect, and not daylight. Hunter in the Void is an experiment for studying how animals interact with cameras, set within a specified daily rhythm. For this purpose Thomas Julier intervenes into the normal rhythm of the Kunsthaus: he changes the Museum’s common opening times, adapting them relative to the sun’s position. The Kunsthaus will be open at different times each day during twilight hours, from two hours before to two hours after sunset.

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