How Did Art Come to Düsseldorf? („Pace makers”)
The core idea behind this media performance was to revive local history—in the spirit of the “Fluxus” movement—and keep it alive. Artists and other “pace makers” from various generations—cultural figures who keep the city’s contemporary art scene in motion—gathered there that evening, inviting others to discuss how art in Düsseldorf has evolved over time. In doing so, the Burgplatz public square transformed into a platform for communication and a stage for action. The „pace makers“ were photographically portrayed in black & white; each of them picked another page in the printed medium, which was supposed to represent their work or a standpoint.
Included were: Joachim Erwin (then-Major of Düsseldorf), RP Büssow, Wolfgang Schulhof, Günther Uecker, Tamara K.E., Gia Edzgveradze, Thea Gvetadze, Vera Loers, Edmund Spohr, Katarina Mayer, Gudrun Kemsa, „Konsortium“, Dorothee Bouchard, Brother Matthäus, Robert Solomon, Tanzhaus NRW, Performance Group Everything is all right, Slavko Kacunko, Horst A. Wessel, “Parkhaus”, Werner Frankenhauser, “Filmwerkstadt”, Jutta Saum, Timo Skandies, Ruth Walligalla, Elke Frühauf, Düsseldorfer Künnstlerinnen e.V., Johannes Stüttgen, Heinz Baumüller, Karl-Heinz Theisen, Evelin Theisen, Medici-Club-Düsseldorf, Karl Heinz Rommey, Jost Wischnewski, Ralf Berger, Ivo Dekovic, Ariane Neuhaus-Koch.
The Location
The Burgplatz was chosen as the venue with deliberate care, as it was the source of groundbreaking impulses in the past that continue to shape Düsseldorf’s cultural life to this day. The square had recently regained significance with the opening of the Art Academy’s new gallery.
The spark that ignited Düsseldorf’s identity as a city of art was the decision by Johann Wilhelm II, Elector Palatine (reigned 1690–1716), to select and develop the city as his royal residence. Elector Jan Wellem—as he was known in Düsseldorf—was married to the Florentine princess Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici. Prominent Italian artists and architects were summoned to the provincial town, revitalizing a cultural scene that had previously lain dormant. This led to the creation of a magnificent electoral art collection; following Jan Wellem’s death, the works were transported first to Mannheim and eventually to Munich. The castle where the royal couple resided was destroyed by fire in 1872 and completely demolished in 1888. All that remains is the castle tower, which stands to this day as the sole surviving monument on the Burgplatz, marking the dawn of Düsseldorf’s cultural era.
The Media Performance
In keeping with the principles of the “BOOTSCHAFT” project, the “microcosm” of a patina particle from the castle tower was photographed and digitized using a video microscope. Based on this data, a video animation was created to be projected onto a sculpture in the Burgplatz—a sculpture whose form was derived from the architecture of the castle tower’s roof. A special rear-projection film was stretched over this structure, allowing the video projection to be viewed from both sides.
This “light sculpture” (URANKER) not only illuminated the Burgplatz—the heart of Düsseldorf’s Old Town—but also established a symbolic link to modern-day Düsseldorf by being oriented toward the newly developed MediaHarbour. Following the performance, URANKER was installed in the “Kaistr. 13” building (designed by architect Wolfgang Döring) in the harbor district.Die Zeitung –– die Dokumentation
The Newspaper – The Documentation
During the light performance, a newspaper was distributed featuring profiles of the approximately one hundred participating artists and trailblazers, who introduced themselves and shared their visions and messages.
Comment
The project SAY(IL)ING [BO(O)TSCHAFT] that has been realised in several stages. It focused primarily on the objects in the public sphere with a particular cultural or ecological background. The starting point created the increasing excessive demand of the bearer of democratic decision-making processes under globalised conditions of medial and any other hyper production. In this regard, according to the initial analysis of the artist, it is becoming more and more important to illuminate both metaphorically and factually the individual contents, among which are the surfaces of natural and cultural ‘sayings’, and thus to visualise their meaning and significance. By using existing and newly visualised techniques, the patina of an object (e.g. a public building) would be projected onto the surface of the same object as a live video image. Thanks to the medial visualisation of its microscopic structure, the ‘history’ and the ‘present’ of the illuminated object and its surroundings ‘unwind’. It is meticulously demonstrated, documented and presented to the public for reflection and discussion. It transforms the new medial and material presence of the represented object into a cultural subject. This constellation of observed and observing subjects evokes the tendencies of the present interaction with the ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’ of the natural-historical and cultural-historical ‘things’ and ‘agencies’. These tendencies were first put forward by Bruno Latour and later widely adopted.
The ‘contextually fixed’ interaction with the visualisation techniques gains relevance and topicality through the interlocking of technology, culture, ecology and economy, which obviously does not orient itself primarily to economic growth. The growth that Sabine Kacunko acts on, however, contains the logic of the above separate disciplines in the age of (as to referred by Latour) ‘techno cultures’, by focusing on their mutual ‘resource-materialistic’ fundamentals and future prospects. The project BOOTSCHAFT was, in this regard, based upon a seemingly simple ‘observation’: microbes produce the natural patina. Under the influence of the micro-organisms, temperature, wind, air, water as well as chemical and organic substances solved in them, create a protective film, which adheres on the dusty surface of an object like a fingerprint. The natural biofilm – the ‘patina’ – protects objects from decay as analogous memory of the past. Art, in this context, acts as a ‘guardian’ of this sensible protective layer, which (re)presents simultaneously a medial-material ‘natural-analogous’ bearer of culture/nature.
Sabine Kacunko asked a number of questions with her project SAY(IL)ING[BO(O)TSCHAFT] referring directly to the principles of ‘lab art’ that obeys the ‘techno sciences’. The public space turns into a lab, in which the interrelations of things or creatures with their environment is analyzed and continuously communicated. The precarious relationship between wind erosion and bio-erosion (bacteria and other microbes) is, for example, analyzed between the analogous and virtual public space. While sensual perception on the one hand and mechanical measure on the other hand, enter into a (self)-confident opening dialogue, the so-called aesthetic experience of the recipients remains oscillating at the interface between various concepts. In particular, the question about the condition of cultural goods in the context of a sustainable development is put forward.
