HYBRID BREATHING was an oversized announcement of the artist´s new project ANIMA, and at the same time, an announcement of a local construction project. It took shape of an approximately 400 square meter billboard on house 1 of the Kahlbaum area in Görlitz. Since January 26/2022, the giant billboard has surrounded the scaffolded building at the exposed inner-city intersection of Dr.-Kahlbaum-Allee and James-von-Moltke-Strasse. The poster campaign, designed to last two years, was the prelude to a dialogical and process-oriented art and culture project that is intended also to provide information on the history, present and future of the Kahlbaum area.
The billboard consisted of 5 parts: While the west-facing surface—measuring approximately 100 square meters—bears an oversized depiction of the sculpture intended for the site, the south-facing surface (spanning 25 meters and covering about 250 square meters) displays a conceptual sketch for the Kahlbaum site designed by Sabine Kacunko. Positioned diagonally between them and terminating at the small balcony tower, a surface of just under 50 square meters consists of two inscribed panels meeting at a right angle; these panels describe the core concept of the ΔNIMΔ project in poetic terms (a poem, in English). Above, the fifth, vertical surface features a silhouette-style depiction of an abstract aerosol sculpture, framed by the project title “ΔNIMΔ. HYBRID BREΔTHING,” the inscription “The world’s first collaborative lung machine”.
It is a paraphrase of the title of the first internet artwork, The World’s First Collaborative Sentence (1994), by the American artist Douglas Davis. Sabine Kacunko maintained a close relationship with the artist, with whom she also conducted an extensive correspondence until his death. The artistic format of the poster campaign is, in turn, conceived as a reference to the famous “billboard campaigns” of the American artist Les Levine, with whom Sabine Kacunko was also in contact, having produced his photographic portraits.
The centrally depicted virtual aerosol sculpture COSMOPOLITAN embodies microbial dust—which never truly settles but constantly swirls up and seemingly takes root again—and transforms into a “cosmopolitan.” COSMOPOLITAN presents a dynamic experimental setup that focuses attention on omnipresent yet barely representable aerosols and the bacteria adhering to them (the earliest forms of life). COSMOPOLITAN reflects the equilibrium between nature and culture and stimulates public interest in ecological structures, democratization processes, and concepts of sustainability.
The virtual aerosol sculpture is based on the shape and size of an aerosol cluster consisting of 89 particles (Jan Huth, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz). Winds disperse sand particles (aerosols) and the microorganisms adhering to them across the globe; on their journey to Europe or South America, for instance, these particles reach rainforests, where they act as “natural fertilizer.” Aerosols—both natural and those produced by humans since the onset of industrialization—play a pivotal role in atmospheric chemistry and physics, the biosphere, the climate, and human health. These airborne particles influence Earth’s energy balance.
Western billboard, James-von-Moltke-Straße showed a 3-D representation of Sabine Kacunko´s ANIMATED SCULPTURE; weil on the south side, a conceptual sketch of the Kahlbaum site by Sabine Kacunko was depicted, also as a 3D drawing.
The poem on the two inscribed panels:
If you look at the sphere, you realize the shape of the universe: the shared idea of the cosmos respiring chaos.
This is where the ∆NIM∆ arises: from the swirl of matter and energy.
The animated prospect leads you through the remoted galaxies to the own one. Suns and planets are but the sand grains in your discerning eye. You cannot discern between the visions any longer: Is it artistic, scientific, spiritual?
If you take a deep breath, you can dive into your solar system: It´s like a fragile solar plexus of the Milky Way; a blow to this region would get the wind knocked out of it your world would stop to breathe.
However, the animated matter continues to emerge and end up in ever-new spiral rotations. The coincidence of the real and virtual requires a large narrative on a micro logical scale: The history and structure of nature and culture thus become the medium of art. The art becomes the medium of knowledge.
The spherical shapes of the distributed worlds stand out from the surroundings, while adhering to the dynamic structure: You apprehend the character and content of an artwork, which is both free-floating and anchored in a created reflective space.
Blow your mind in concert with others. To be moved by the other means to allow a dynamic that defines a new, common course. Human, habitat, health and heritage can be thought through with their cluster-like social models and survival strategies.
This is where ∆NIM∆ arises: It is artistic, scientific, and spiritual.
Imagine the model of an immortal organism that reproduces the maintenance and renewal of the life cycle in itself. If you zoom onto your planet, it may evoke the emergence and formation of a lung, associated with the formation and transformation of the living structures consisting of resembling spherical shapes.
Zoom into the lung of Nature with its bronchial tree built out of the alveoli clusters; ∆NIM∆ appears as a “breath” in the model of the alveoli, the small cavities in the lungs in which the actual gas exchange takes place during breathing.
Follow the path of grape-shaped aerosol clusters and fade into the processes that contribute decisively to the human life as a literally pervasive principle.
∆NIM∆: the soul, the breath, the breeze, the air, and the wind: it is the principle that pervades all life in which the micro- and macrocosm meet. ∆NIM∆ is neither material nor an immaterial substance; it is neither composed nor undivided. It takes the age-old idea as an opportunity to investigate the extent to which it can serve as a model.
The history of your travel has changed its pace and rhythm, ending with the universe of a single aerosol. If you now look at the sphere, you realize the shape of an aerosol. You realize in it the shape of the universe – the shared idea of the cosmos respiring chaos.
Comment
This billboard campaign was a starting point of Sabine Kacunko´s Project ANIMA: ΔNIMΔ – the soul, breath, exhalation, air, wind: The ancient motif of a principle permeating all life served as the inspiration and backdrop for the art and cultural project that continued in several stages. This particular presentation was designed to unfold step-by-step through dialogue with local initiatives and interested parties—both on-site and in virtual space—engaging art and science, business and politics, and, not least, the general public. ΔNIMΔ emerged within the context of Sabine Kacunko´s hybrid exhibition and engagement practices as well as other initiatives that operate at the intersection of museum and public spaces. They are primarily focused on the relationships between natural and cultural heritage—hence the close interconnection of the concepts: Human, Health, Heritage, and Habitat.
Credits
Max Planck Institut Mainz
Gerüstbau Tisch GmbH Berlin
Bannerheld Berlin
Pro Kahlbaum Initiative
goerlitz21 e.V.
Initiative Görlitz gGmbH
Micro Human gUG, Zweigstelle Görlitz
