The former Centrum Warenhaus department store on Berlin’s Alexanderplatz, today the Galeria Kaufhof, was renovated in 2004–05, and in the process its distinctive aluminum “honeycomb” facade was removed. However, it was never possible to see the building naked: For one thing, the facade was covered in building wrap during disassembly, but more importantly, the construction process dictated that the old building be progressively replaced by the new one, piece by piece. As a result, the interface between old and new was never visible.

With the animation Digistrip, Heike Klussmann fulfilled her desire to see the Centrum Warenhaus naked, replacing the aluminum facade pixel by pixel. Each click becomes a still in the film. The facade is digitally dismantled, in a process determined by the capacities of digital tools. Animation created from 1,815 individual frames, 1:12 min. + 15 frames.

Digistrip is the animated complement to Realstrip.

The Super 8 animation Kaufhof off the Reel shows me in my studio, apparently building a structure with a watering can. This appearance, however, is revealed to be a process of deconstruction shown in reverse.