In 1816, E. T. A. Hoffmann published the short story ‘The Sandman’, which centres on the tale the nurse told young Nathanael when he asked her about the ‘Sandman’:
‘Eh, Natty‘, said she, ‘don't you know that yet? He is a wicked man, who comes to children when they won’t go to bed, and throws a handful of sand into their eyes, so that they start out bleeding from their heads. He puts their eyes in a bag and carries them to the crescent moon to feed his own children, who sit in the nest up there. They have crooked beaks like owls so that they can pick up the eyes of naughty human children.’
In 1919, Sigmund Freud published his psychoanalyst treatise about ‘The Uncanny’, which he based on the story about the ‘Sandman’ and which is still a fundamental piece of writing, in the periodical Imago (Zeitschrift für Anwendung der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissenschaften).
The site-specific video installation ‘The Sandman’ transforms the gallery space into a hypnotically suggestive scenario and invites the spectator to slip into the role of Nathanael. Thematically, this work relates to ‘WHERE DOES THIS MESSAGE COME FROM?’ (2013, Sigmund Freud Museum) and VISITING FREUD (2013, Albertina).
(Translation: Brigitte Willinger)
Andrea ECKERT liest aus E.T.A. HOFFMANN, DER SANDMANN
2013/16, Inkjet-Print auf Hahnemühle-Papier, kaschiert auf Dipond-Platte, 81X108 cm