5AM Equestrian is the installation version of Equestrian.
In bygone days, when equestrian statues were erected in every town square to pay tribute to a king or general, scientists were faced with this insoluble question: does a horse at any time during full trot or gallop get off the ground with all four legs at the same time? Only the invention of photography and the ingenious ideas of Eadweard Muybridge proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the case. You could see it with your own eyes, which was evidence enough.

Van Bakel found an empty square and gave it a virtual statue of a policewoman on horseback. With a kind of inventiveness that would have made Muybridge proud, he makes the cameras, the equestrian statue and the urban decor swarm all ar…und one another. The sound of shod hooves on the pavement completes the effect of a quick succession of dissolves. In the year 2002, digital technology apparently even allowed an artist to let horse and rider float permanently. You can see it happening, but that photographic images show the indisputable truth is something of the past.

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