In this work the movement of a large video monitor mounted on an industrial fork-lift truck creates a virtual representation of a larger than life size ballerina. As the forklift moves the monitor up and down the ballerina is presented from head to toe, and as the forklift truck rotates the ballerina also appears to turn. In this way the monitor functions as a window that gradually reveals the virtual presence of the ballerina who is dancing in the same axis as the rotating forklift truck.

Also visible inside the motor compartment of the forklift truck is a small rotating ballerina figurine in front of which a video camera moves up and down. This mechanism is electronically synchronised with the movement of the forklift itself and provides the closed circuit source for the video image of the ballerina that is seen on the monitor screen.

Disappearance evokes and celebrates the memory of the ballerina on a music box (a first generation robot) and generates her virtual reconstruction to the extent that the machinery of reproduction itself now incarnates her pirouettes.

Credits:

Hardware: Huib Nelissen, Bas Bossinade

Exhibitions:

1993: Kunsthalle, Vienna, Austria.

1994: Automata, World Festival Exposition MIE 94, Nagoya, Japan; MultiMediale 3, ZKM, Karlsruhe, Germany.