In Empire 24/7, Staehle set up a digital camera in his office in New York and fixed the camera to stay pointing at the Empire State Building. In short time intervals, Staehle captured images of the building and transmitted them through the Internet to the ZKM Center for Art and Media to be projected in a gallery at his 1999 "Net Condition" exhibition (http://www.acrstudio.com/projects/word/staehle_wolfgang/). According to the Mark Tribe website, "Staehle titled the installation Empire 24/7 in reference to Andy Warhol's Empire (1964), an eight-hour-long film in which the camera focuses on the Empire State Building from dusk until dawn. Like Warhol, Staehle frames the Empire State Building in a prolonged static shot that draws attention, through the absence of action and camera movement, to the structure of the tower itself, to the effects of light on the building and in the sky, and to the act of viewing itself."
Through Empire 24/7, Staehle wanted to observe and remark on the widespread popularity and availability of the Internet to be able to communicate and show something to everyone. Posting Empire 24/7 on the Internet and galleries enabled participation in the viewing experience. Therefore, the occurrence of creating art can be simultaneously viewed as it is being created. There is a notion of globalization which is now an important topic that is discussed and argued about frequently. With the internet, there are now more "blurred boundaries" since there is widespread access to information all over the world. This also relates to his founding of "The Thing" which was an electronic bulletin board system which hosted a forum online and created a community where information and discussions could be displayed. According to the Mark Tribe website, "Staehle's Web cam work reflects the temporal compression of Internet communication...according to Staehle, Empire 24/7 is about 'instant images for instant consumption.' Staehle's project shows how the ubiquity of Web cameras have produced a Warholian environment in which even the most mundane scene is available to anyone with Internet access, at any time, anywhere -- 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Staehle's projection created the impression of a virtual window..."
I was reminded of the time lapse technique when I read about Staehle's works. However, the fact that they are all still photographs that change with time allows us to focus on one image at a time as the time goes by. This piece appeals to me because not everyone is able to capture and observe every moment of something each second of the day. However Staehle's work makes the viewing experience possible and available to anyone with the internet. It is interesting to be able to see the same image but with different "looks" due to natural circumstances and changes.
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