O.i.F. Movie Locations

O.i.F. Movie Locations, Florence Loewy Paris, 2010


»O.i.F./Movie Locations by the Düsseldorf-based duo Katja Stuke and Oliver Sieber shows original locations of legendary Hollywood films in their current unadorned state. Some former sets are non-descript while others simmer with cinematic memories. Shot between 1997 and 2004, the locations are identified by name and by the movies that made them famous« (printed matter); focussing on the conceptual idea of how to find an image. This is where the title comes from: O.i.F., short for Original in Farbe/original in colour, used in magazines and newspapers when reproducing colour images in black/white.

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
O.i.F./Movie Locations

61 Pigment Prints, each 16,5 x 22 cm
Numbered and signed, Ed. #10
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The guide book to the images: One way to find images. Manhattan-Bridge as seen from Brooklyn was one of our first destinations in New York. It looked like expected. Almost not real. Of course a film team was just about to leave. Nowadays the streets are crowded and you find a Starbuck’s at every corner.

Sitting next to Patricia Arquette: A kind of restaurant guide book. Breakfast in Hills Coffee Shop/Hollywood – because of Swingers. Across Whilshire Boulevard (beautyfully demolished in Volcano) to Fairfax Avenue, having a hamburger in Canter’s next to the Enemy of the State. We keep on crossing the city: to Rae’s in St. Monica because of True Romance, to Burbank for of Bob’s Big Boy and Heat, and of course to Chinatown because of Jack Nicolson and Faye
Dunaway. A last drink back in Pantry Cafe opposite the Hotel, and we are very sure this will be a movie location pretty soon.

Tokyo, California. The Second Street Tunnel at Figeroa Street appears in almost every other film since Blade Runner. Actually—it really looks great. The light reflects beautifully from the shiny polished walls. It is quite convenient—only a couple of miles away from Hollywood. So Uma Thurman can drive through the tunnel in Kill Bill pretending she’s in Tokyo.

Looking for fiction in reality It was to be expected. It is never as spectacular as in the movies. The super hero, who just saved us from another catastrophe, hides behind the air hostesses packing their luggage in the shuttle bus. The corny real is blocking the view of spectacular actions. Isn’t it more exciting to imagine how many murder-scenes were shot in the motel that we just found. Doesn’t this part of the wild look just like in U-Turn? Couldn’t this street be the one from Lost Highway? And white sharks everywhere.

This is our movie The bowling alley where John Turturro and Jeff Bridges meet is on Hollywood Boulevard. You can’t get in there. It is open to film teams only. Same thing at Johnny’s Coffee Shop, where Tom Waits has his breakfast with Lili Tomlin in Short Cuts. The old cinemas in Hollywood are closing down, now used as churches. It seems to be time to look for our own
film locations. Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber


O.i.F. / Movie Locations exhibited at:
2015 Aperture-Foundation/Paris Photo Night at Silencio Paris
2015 Künstlerverein Malkasten
2014 Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf [G]
2011 Museum für Photographie, Braunschweig
2010 Florence Loewy, Paris
2010 Hypermarché, Arles
2009 Galerie Kaune, Sudendorf Köln
2004 Goethe Institut Rotterdam


Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf
DIE GROSSE, 2015
Künstlerverein Malkasten 2015

Katja Stuke & Oliver Sieber
O.i.F. Unser Film, 2005

One-channel video, 2:50:08
music by Axel Ganz