Artists’ initiative: Sparwasser HQ
(Berlin / DE) www.sparwasserhq.de
Sparwasser HQ, Offensive for Contemporary Art and Communication, is a non-commercial project based in Berlin. Various artistic practices and curatorial experiments are used to examine the conditions of contemporary art production and its social relations. Art is regarded as an important contribution to alternative knowledge production. The Sparwasser project is characterized by a changing group of participating artists and theorists who shape both the program and everyday operations. Sparwasser HQ on the subvision site is Catarina Miranda and Lise Nellemann. For the subvison Festival Sparwasser HQ asked four artist groups to contribute:
Instant Coffee
Website
Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop
Website
Vinyl-Terror & -Horror
Website
YKON World Game
Website
Instant Coffee is a Toronto and Vancouver-based artist collective. Through formal installations and event-based activities, they build public places to practice, where ideas, materials and actions can be explored outside of the isolated studio and in a manner that renegotiates traditional exhibition structures, but is still supported by them. Instant Coffee’s frequent practice is to build architectural installations, that are, at times ironic, reconstructions of spaces of leisure. Instant Coffee shows the Disco Fallout Shelter at subvsion. On site is Kelly Lucan and Jinhan Ko.
Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop uses the fast growing, omnipresent Tree of Heaven (Götterbaum) as a resource to produce sculptures and furniture. This species is exceptionally resistant to polluted soils and thus a common settler of postindustrial landscapes like the one here in the harbor. The installation consists of a trunk of a tree cut up in slices, a bench produced out of the heavenly wood, and a “tree spotting video” documenting potential harvesting sites in Detroit. On the subvision site is Annette Weisser.
Vinyl-Terror & -Horror is a collaboration with focus on sound, installation, mobil-culture and architectural constructions in urban space. Vinyl -Terror & -Horror created for the container an installation, a mashinery of old record players, beautifully served by invisibly hands. 5 newly produced records are speeding up an down, record player pick-up arms are lifting and lading on front and back side of floating vinyls. During this concert of scratch, flying sand, container and the sentimentality of old mould is toned down by the beauty of ghosty perfection. On site is Camila Sørensen and Greta Dahl Christensen.
YKON is a non-profit advocacy group for unrepresented nations, experimental countries and utopian thinkers. The disseminiation and production of knowledge on such fragile entities through co-operation between the arts and all other fields of study is a key interest of YKON. Group fusion, curiosity about utopian fantasy productions, and interest in the emergence and drying-up of alternative architectures of society unite its membership. On August 29, the artist group YKON is inviting the public to participate in their World Game. Occupying the last container on the peninsula they situate their game zone in the sand in front of their info center. The artists will introduce their Game, an event lasting 6 hours, starting at 15h and continuing throughout the evening. The YKON Game is a world simulation for up to 30 players. The world is put “on hold” for 6 years. On site is Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Pekko Koskinen, Ulu Braun.
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Vinyl-Terror & -Horror’s sound installation for the subvision festival.