Werkvorstellungen, Videographien, Prints, Malereien, Grafik

Imprint: Smart City

Datum 24.07.24

Image sequence performance

The sketches and impressions for Trabantenstadt have survived remarkably well. The title sounds dated to me now; perhaps I would call the work Smart City today.

It began with a question: what might a housing crisis look like in the future? At the time, I entered a kind of daydream. I had never heard of remote viewing. For me, it was a meditative state of mind – although others may have taken my silent staring for a lack of presence.

The images came suddenly, and in great numbers: a privileged group living in an enormous glass-roofed shopping mall, almost like a five-star hotel. Others were confined to densely packed, cube-like housing blocks. I was thinking of the repetition and exposed concrete of Brutalism – and of living spaces that brought battery cages to mind.

This vision of the future touched on a very immediate concern. In the 1990s, decent housing seemed almost out of reach for many people. There were building occupations. I, too, wondered whether I should save for a flat of my own, or build one myself, even if it meant making considerable sacrifices. Trabantenstadt grew out of this mixture of anxiety and imagination.

In the performance, the owners of the housing blocks were recognisable to the people as a species apart by their sixth finger. Only later did I discover possible connections with biblical stories and science-fiction figures. I had not thought of these when I was developing the work.

The audience found little to make of the sequence of images and the Dada texts. Some called the work chaotic; others sensed that there might be something behind it, but I could offer them no satisfying answer.

Trabantenstadt was later meant to be connected with ZeroCollage and Descamisados. That never happened. The action came to rest on a figure being drawn and pressed to the ground. Here I show a sketch from the work. Perhaps you can already glimpse a connection to the other performances.

Here I show you one of the sketches on the subject.