|
There are no translations available.
MEDIA IMPACT - Special Programm 4th Biennale Moscow
ARTPLAY Moscow
Москва, Н. Сыромятническая ул., д.10.
Media Impact is a special Project from the 4th biennale/moscow and okk/room29 is invited to present projects between art and activism. following positions will be shown int the exhibition at artplay moscow:
1.okk/raum29 (kik-box project / metanationale / a.o.) (videoinstallation, 2007-2011)
2.eclectic electric collective / okk: "el martillo" - the activist hammer (installation, 2011)
3.PaintSyndicate - „Shanghai Kappa Girl“ (paintings / videoinstallation, 2011)
4.office for applied poetic terrorism (installation / objects 2007-2011)
5.Zorka Lednarova: - „Greetings from Moscow“ (Postcards / Lenticular Print, 2011)
6.Juan Pablo Diaz: - "Weapon Icons" (Serigraphic print on paper, 2011)
September 26 - 19.00 Pablo Hermann & Robert Huber (Germany). Art and Protest. Political Art Practice between Art and Activism. Lecture
http://www.artplay.ru/
http://4th.moscowbiennale.ru/
http://zhiruzhir.ru/
Moscow / Russia
24.09 - 11.10.2011
____________________________________________________________
A short description of the production and the installation of the second activist-hammer for “Media Impact. International Festival of Activist Art” 4th biennale Moscow 2011.
After the definitive decision of eclectic electric members not to participate at the project for the biennale Moscow, okk looked forward to realize the purpose elaborated by eec and okk.
The first step was to build a team of workers and a team of installators for the exhibition in ARTPLAY/Moscow with exhibition at 24th of September 2011 (duration until 11th of october)
The new team was composed by:
Juan Pablo Díaz (okk-moscow)
Ricardo Ramirez(father of the hammer/okk-berlin)
Pablo Hermann (okk-moscow)
Marcelo Arteaga (okk-berlin)
Miquele Lazar (okk-berlin)
Robert(o) Hubert(o)(paint syndicate - moscow)
This is the evidence of our stay in Moscow
It was clear that we wouldn’t present an inflatable again, but we wanted to use the same material and the same form for constructing the installation. The next problem was to build the installation by maintaining the real dimensions of the first activist hammer sent to Mexico. So the idea was to construct the head of the hammer in its original dimensions and to install a video-screening inside the construction. Then the visitors can enter into the hammer and see the video of the project started 2010 in Berlin/Wedding at okk/room29 by eclectic electric collective and okk.
It was obvious that the structure of the hammer, as it was constructed for inflate, could not be the same as the construction we needed to develop for the second one. We asked Ricardo if he can imagine to build this structure, or skeleton for the hammerhead. (he is an Columbian artist based in Berlin and he works with giant puppets and costumes for the Carnival of cultures).
The idea to use wood was rejected soon, because of the weight and inflexibility. So the indicated material was glass-fiber, which was not really cheap to get but it was the only material we could use for our idea. The skeleton we needed was like the grid of a tent, with connectable pieces and middle sections. Ricardo spent like three days developing this special pieces and he masterly resolved the technical and the material problems.
Technical specifications:
Fiber tubes 10mm for the structure-bars
Fiber tubes 3mm for the entrance structure (upright piece)
Aluminium tubes 11mm for the corner pieces
Macrolon-pieces for the junctions (triangular-star-structure for the 90° angles) and stabilization-triangle-piece.
(Table with materials and tools, okk sept.2011)
The fortune definitely was on our side, Ricardo also was an excellent sewer and he organized and composed the hammer sewing into two days, with 10 hands an almostly routine-work, with beer und wurst and full pipes!
Also we had the sketches from Artur and input from Maria, from the first workshop in autumn 2010, which were very usefull as the base of new calculations and modifications on the structure.
The construction and experimentation of the skeleton-structure was worked bottom up, (a little detail which costs us a lot of nerves in Moscow!) so we could crawl inside the huge hammer by building it step by step from his own interior.
We noticed that the structure is weak and not strong enough to hold the entire weight and tenseness, so it was necessary to built an additional structure to tide over the different blankets.
This additional pieces, are the only ones made out of wooden cubes, the material we initially wanted to use for the entire shape.
The work of measuring and cutting the whole pieces (about hundred meters of tubes being connected) was a meticulous and bloody nerve-wracking activity! Considering a few of centimeters of each piece to ensure that we will have a template and tensed hammerhead. But after a week the hammer was ready to get packed and brought to Moscow. The application of vacuum-bags (you can disinflate it with a common hoover) is very usefull, so you can reduce the volume to a minimum of space. The silver plastic piece, you can see at the left of the photo is the complete material compacted!!!
The costs for the materials we needed was about 800 € (the most expensive was the fiber-bars), not counting the work of 4 people during 4 weeks.
The re-construction in moskow: Artplay
We meet a lot of interesting people there and we were friendly received by our Russian colleagues and curator Tatiana Volkova. Our home was the atelier of the Russian artist Roman Minaev, a co-curator of the -Media Impact- project. And we had a good room for living and working.
Unfortunately we were not as mobile and communicated as we would be in Berlin and it was difficult to get some materials or tools(Cyrillic script is a real defiance when you arrived the first time in Russia). Juan Pablo was weaponed with the basic tools so it was easier for us proceeding with the real challenge to build the installation. Masha a student of art history was volunteer to help us buying and finding materials, without her help we would have been lost. The deprived situation of tools and materials at the exhibition place is incredible. There was no ladder no desks no chairs at all to build an stable entrance into the structure of our installation-piece. So we decided to construct it by lying on the side, which turns out as an grave mistake, afterwards by tensing the hanged hammer. But anyway … I think there is nothing more embarrassing than no – or false tools for working. There was one screwdriver for 50 persons working – I think with this simple example everything about the working conditions is said! Eec would have been lost by nerves !
We needed fife days for installing the hammer!
Different circumstances impeded the perfect rebuilding of the hammer. One of our discussed items was the stability of the ends of the corners (photo below) where the bars come together and develop a high tension and force which has to be stabilized. We never resolved this technical problem, so we were not able to bring the complete convexed tension on our structure, so we only reached to construct a shriveled hammer!
After all the Russians said we shouldn´t be worried about the conditions, everything will be allright at last minute. And the prophecy was real: last minute we cleaned up the place, installed all our works and videos and I could give a performance of the office of applied poetic terrorism.
The Monday 26th of September we held a lecture about our collective works and the structures of okk and applied methods of the work of paint syndicate. We were supported by and worked together with the compost team, Camille and Julie which made an illustrated interactive presentation of the items we spoke about.
Julie Bellanca from kom.post
http://www.kompost.me/mediaimpact/
Robert Huber explaining his work “Kappa Girl” during the talk about Art and Protest - Political Art Practice between Art and Activism. We invited kom.post for transforming with us the usual frame of the lecture into a shared ground of discussions and exchanges between the artists, theoricians and the diverse audience.
(((p))) – okk/raum29
Text: Pablo Hermann
Photos: Juan Pablo Díaz / Pablo Hermann
|
