It's when centimeters replace inches in your head, when you start to understand how long you've been in Europe. It's been a while.
Recently some major shifts have tilted us towards heading back home in the Summer. One is the excellent news that Burning Man awarded Christian a grant to build a new huge sculpture. You can see more details on his BLOG. We are super excited, it seemed that much of our future was hanging on this decision. Not only does it present a true challenge on how to pull this off in Berlin, and only using metric measurements at that, but it gives us a ceremonious welcome home via BRC. I can't think of a better return.
One of the best things about Berlin has been the ability to work at KAOS, the community art space both Christian and I are part of now. We are continuously meeting new interesting people a wide variety of mad skills. Forging friendships is a slow process but we landed in the right pool of fellow "maker folk", which feels good.
I have been working on a slightly different project for about three plus months there, building a small house which hosts an installation. It has almost no metal work and is made up of wood and paper and some old cell phones. Not my usual repertoire of mediums. It's almost done, so I feel like it's time to share it with you. It's called Mitt Uthus, which means My Outhouse in Swedish, and is a replica of a traditional outhouse found almost anywhere in the country side in Sweden. The inside of the house is not really an outhouse, rather a place to sit and contemplate for a while.
The inside walls are completely covered with images acting as wallpaper. My earliest sense of the world came through the images plastered within my grandparents' outhouse, and I came to understood the world based on those images. Today we have viral media, and internet memes. Short, sometimes funny phrases upon circulated images from the news, movies, and cartoons. I have included images that are meaningful to me personally as well as images that represent my time to date. I also added three smart phone screens, embedded into the walls, displaying images and text as well. I want this juxtaposition of technology and memes and vernacular architecture to meld into an immersive experience related to global human impact, familiar and yet disturbing. In a short blurb:
Mitt Uthus is an exploration into contemporary viral media and the power wielded by these iconic visual sound bites of our culture.
Recently some major shifts have tilted us towards heading back home in the Summer. One is the excellent news that Burning Man awarded Christian a grant to build a new huge sculpture. You can see more details on his BLOG. We are super excited, it seemed that much of our future was hanging on this decision. Not only does it present a true challenge on how to pull this off in Berlin, and only using metric measurements at that, but it gives us a ceremonious welcome home via BRC. I can't think of a better return.
One of the best things about Berlin has been the ability to work at KAOS, the community art space both Christian and I are part of now. We are continuously meeting new interesting people a wide variety of mad skills. Forging friendships is a slow process but we landed in the right pool of fellow "maker folk", which feels good.
I have been working on a slightly different project for about three plus months there, building a small house which hosts an installation. It has almost no metal work and is made up of wood and paper and some old cell phones. Not my usual repertoire of mediums. It's almost done, so I feel like it's time to share it with you. It's called Mitt Uthus, which means My Outhouse in Swedish, and is a replica of a traditional outhouse found almost anywhere in the country side in Sweden. The inside of the house is not really an outhouse, rather a place to sit and contemplate for a while.
The inside walls are completely covered with images acting as wallpaper. My earliest sense of the world came through the images plastered within my grandparents' outhouse, and I came to understood the world based on those images. Today we have viral media, and internet memes. Short, sometimes funny phrases upon circulated images from the news, movies, and cartoons. I have included images that are meaningful to me personally as well as images that represent my time to date. I also added three smart phone screens, embedded into the walls, displaying images and text as well. I want this juxtaposition of technology and memes and vernacular architecture to meld into an immersive experience related to global human impact, familiar and yet disturbing. In a short blurb:
Mitt Uthus is an exploration into contemporary viral media and the power wielded by these iconic visual sound bites of our culture.
I feel like the timing of this installation is spot on, as parts of the concept have been echoed in various lectures and movies I saw recently at the Berlin Transmediale festival as well as a current exhibit at the CCCB (in Barcelona) relating to memes and politics in our culture.
I am in the process of making a video of the piece, as I think it's the best way to share the concept, but I will post some simple pictures first..
This is the beginning. I guess it also reflects that I feel uprooted and love to build houses... This process was a bit challenging as it has to come a part into several flat panels for transport.
All the walls separate with a few screws and the roof is two sections fastened onto the ends and a middle beam(not in the picture yet).
I built a floating floor with old palette wood as well.
I then sheathed the panels and started planning the interior bench and hidden electric to power the one light bulb as well as charging the phones.
I spent some time designing the door, with a slightly frightened moon face and a five pointed star. I forged the handle in the KAOS metal shop(more pics on that soon)
Now the first coat of paint is on the outside. I still have trim and finishing
touches to paint..
Then the inside..this is a dark pano shot of the walls seen from the bench.
..and a little detail from a section of one wall.
Hopefully I can get the video done soon to be able to show you more! It's always a bit scary sharing a new project for the first time, especially one that is more personal and outside the usual constraints of what sculpture or visual art is.
Thanks for reading- more to come.
~Bis Bald! (nothing to do with hair loss)
