My video installation “Life in the Death Strip” is a three-dimensional film concept that viewers can physically enter. Unlike traditional 3D cinema, which suggests a spatial reality to passive spectators through glasses or other aids, here they can move through the room themselves and actively create connections.

Thematically, I was fascinated by the fact that in the Death Strip of the Berlin Wall, people were forced to engage in everyday armed work while the world watched passively.

On the West Berlin side, viewing platforms provided glimpses into the wall installations. Tourists could, from a safe distance, like observing a tiger in a zoo, gaze at the potentially life-threatening other side. This is where the wall videos were filmed.

The contrast between our cozy comfort and a murderous reality that seemingly belongs to another world is timeless and has been part of human life for millennia. It is only when it is in the past that we slowly begin to recognize it, usually with the firm belief that we have recognized something.

Stefan Roloff