Bedel places her artistic work in the context of a confrontation with the city and the charged fields of entertainment, public space and subjective experience. The theoretical roots of her investigations are located in Norman Klein’s discourse of the “social imaginary”, Lieven de Cauter’s writings on the “archaeology of the kick” and his analysis of the panorama in entertainment culture.
Bedel uses an expanded text concept, which analogously considers the diverse material and imaginary signs of the city as the signs of language, making this the point of departure for possible interpretations or disclosures. According to this understanding, the text of the city includes not only writing or images, but also movement, for example, noise, entertainment and ideas of space. The question is, which readings can be applied to the city. Bedel arranges her works according to this pattern of polyvocality.
In the course of her daily forays, the process of visual and acoustic sifting and collecting that is characteristic for Bedel’s work, also integrates the stories of city dwellers and their view of what is familiar. Local strategies of representation are queried in relation to concepts such as attraction, popular culture and architecture.
As a flaneur, she explores the terrain, is a researcher, wandering through the city, experiencing the city as a theme park. As a storyteller, she constantly shows viewers something, but she retreats, also in terms of narrative, behind what is seen and heard, allowing it to affect others, refraining from a value judgment or appraising commentary.
The development of her process of interpretation is reflected through the use of diverse media, from moving image to sound and text works. In addition to the poster and catalogue, in which she examines and displays text and language as seemingly socially connecting occurrences in the context of urban architecture, for her exhibition at the Secession, the artist also develops a sound and video project. In this project, the celebrated view of the panorama is linked with the attraction of the extreme vertical experience, in other words the relationship of perception and speed to entertainment and event culture.
