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“Fishing for the new geometry”
2002
St. Petersburg, PLOT Environmental art symposium
200x200x200 cm
Wood construction (free floating raft), collected and unfolded Russian balls
With 58 other international and Russian artists I took part in this symposium/ art in public space exhibition in the suburban district of St. Petersburg. We were asked to display a work on a 2x2m drifting raft on a lake.
At this stage I was busy with my collection Mappa Mundi and constantly searching for new ball designs. It was using my time in Russia to gather new impressions and of cause balls.
Now one immediately recognizes a product manufactured from a foreign industrial nation.
Colors, design, surface luster and grip are very unique. Still 15 years ago a German screwdriver differentiates from an English or Japanese one, even for an ordinary observer. This of cause has been vanished since countries brain drain their know-how into foreign countries for short time market advantages and individuality gets lost within the process.
The Russian industry with their planned market economy, that tried to fulfill consumer wishes years ahead of time were generating a huge amount of products that were and still are unique and desirable collectors items. Planned economies are in contrast to unplanned economies, such as a market economy, where production, distribution, pricing, and investment decisions are made by the private owners of the factors of production based upon their own and their customers' interests rather than upon furthering some overarching macroeconomic plan.
In short- if you in spring bought a pair of shoes that you cherish for their comfort and design, you want be able to find them available in the summer sales. It’s the same with ball design cause the pressing markets push the new and eliminate the old. But Russia, well within the first day I found designs of ball shapes that I have never seen before and never seen since. Therefore I called this work “ Fishing for new geometry”.
I unfolded the shapes and displayed them in form of a “fish Market” selling display on my 2x2qm raft. The work anyhow only lasted for a day, during the opening people were swimming out there and pick items to wear as heads, the next morning even the raft was gone. Nice people though, didn’t mind it.
Domes- interior/exterior
2000
Inside: B/W photographs, glass fiber tissue, oil kit, steel construction
Outside: synthetic fiber, graphite rubbing, steel construction
Starting point for the Installation Domes- interior/exterior was a sports and recreation venue, mainly used for soccer that was covered by an air supported structure. An air-supported structure derives its structural integrity from the use of internal pressurized air to inflate a pliable material (i.e. structural fabric) envelope, so that air is the main support of the structure. These unusual shelters consist of a structural membrane anchored to the ground to form an airtight joint and supported in its design shape by the internal air pressure, maintained by a giant fan blowing air into the structure.
The tent was lying like a white massive shape in the landscape and it often patched and ragged skin made it look like an organic being, an impression that was even stronger at the inside, when surrounded by the yellowish membrane.
The interior air pressure required for air-supported structures is not as much as most people expect but still the compressed air was irritating ones hearing ability and did weird things to the acoustics.
The contrast of the interior and exterior was so impressive that they became two different rooms in form of the “Domes” installation. The inside was photographed in 360*angle and reconstructed as room. The big black and white photography’s were treaded with a layer of fiberglass net and oil kit, which is also used by restaurateurs in old buildings. The room can be entered.
The outside Dome consists of a 36-sqm frottage and cannot be entered. I made this graphite rubbing with help of three assistants on the outside of the buildings membrane.
Library
2001
Idea-sketch for a work in the meeting room of a new media company in Germany.
Not realized
The images of this work originated when I was working on a proposal for a company working in the development of new media. Digital libraries belong to an emerging new culture. Thereby questions concerning production, collection, classification and dissemination of knowledge arise. How is the integrity and sustainability of these collections economically, technically and culturally guaranteed?
A digital culture does not mean that, say; the culture of the book will disappear. Different media having different qualities do not replace each other; -oral culture did not disappear with the invention of writing or with the appearance printed works.
Libraries, digital or otherwise, are just one element in a larger circle through which infomation travels from production to ultimate consumption. They fuse in a stream of synergy with other authors, publishers, distributors and user communities.
But libraries have to come to symbolize and to exemplify the values we impute to the entire circle.
What we say about digital libraries and how we understand them embodies and signals our attitude toward the place of information in our culture. To this extent, it is potentially of great significance how we construct digital libraries and how we talk about them and who is includedin the conversation.
The photographs for this image were taken the University library of Finland, Helsinki that underwent major changes at this point. It was in a transitory state at which it changed from a functioning library to an architectonical showcase, the books were moving out external storage places and were digitalized. Future plans for the beautiful main room of the library were to completely free it from his previous function. It was meant to become a “piazza academia”- a meeting point for discussion and science- what made it interesting for me to work with.
The high resolute image is a collage assembled by many 100 shots that I took in the summer 98/99 at the location. The images were digitized, puzzled together and forged to a panorama view. The interior was stripped free from reading desks and microfilm units and other irritations associated with functioning libraries. The image doesn’t have a deep sharpness that creates an alienating and artificial atmosphere.
The image was supposed to be printed on an UV resistant material that replaces the sunscreens of the window. With a simple switch the amber colored world would decent and change the atmosphere of the location.
Panta rhei
1999
Different plastics (UV constant), Fiberglas, Polio resin,
Anchor (steel/ concrete)
1000 x 150 x 10 cm
Water is an element that we can’t tear our eyes away from. It flows, unites with other waters, to return to the sea, or is it the sea returning to us?
It erodes, it carries along it forces us to reflect on ourselves. But water not only consumes, it also nourishes. As a symbol as well as in practice- water is necessary for life, it purifies, refreshes and heals. When it is polluted it terrifies us and reminds us of our own mortality.
The project “Water in movement” took place in Meppel a small town in the western Netherlands. Artists were asked to develop ideas for installations that could be placed inside artificial canals-in the Netherlands called grachten- that were running through the town. There are two types of canals in the Netherlands: water conveyance canals, which are used for the delivery of water, and waterways, which are navigable transportation canals used for passage of goods and people often connected to the sea or lakes. Meppel had three canals named Heerengracht, Keizersgracht en Prinsengracht-though not being circular- still named after the most famous waterways in Amsterdam, - but by installing solid bridges and dams, these were not shippable anymore. The city wanted artworks that referred to their former origin and to the water as moving element.
Walking along the grachten I was comparing the image of the city map with certain places in the surrounding. My chosen place had no name on the card so I decided to ride one into the water. Panta rhei.
The two word's panta rhei are known within the ontology as the dynamic view of Life. In combination they can be freely translated into “everything is streaming.”
Heraclit is often named in connection to this, thought he might have asserted nothing more profound other than the thought that we exist in a field or continuum in which everything is constantly in flux or process. Heraclit is known for his doctrine of change being central to the universe and stating that the Logos is the fundamental order of all.
However, his assertion of flow is coupled with the enigmatic river image. The word rhei is simply the Greek word for "to stream."
I used the Greek letter type because of origin and its cursive writing style
In addition to being used for writing Modern Greek its letters are today used as symbols in mathematics and science and represent particle names in physics.
It is the first and oldest alphabet in the narrow sense that it notes each vowel and consonant with a separate symbol.
Originally alphabets were written entirely in capital letters, spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. When written quickly with a pen, these tended to turn into rounder and much simpler forms. It is from these that the first minuscule hands developed, the half-uncials and cursive minuscule, which no longer stay bound between a pair of lines.
The word minuscule is often spelled miniscule, by association with the unrelated word miniature. Nevertheless I find this detail fitting because I somehow related the size of the letter type in relation to the size of written names in the map. In the act of naming a place we are approaching to the same.
