Art-Act : That which changes

Type of work: Urtica’s site specific intervention, internet based artwork, and workshop with students
Occasion: “Moiré” — International group exhibition in the context of the project “transform” http://transform.eipcp.net
Place: Kunstraum, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Germany, 2008
Curator: Astrid Wege in cooperation with Kunstraum der Leuphana Universität Lüneburg
Artists: Andreas Fogarasi, Katya Sander, Urtica – art and media research group
read more: http://www.uni-lueneburg.de/interarchiv/projekte/moires.html

Environment:    The University — a vivid intellectual activity is taking place hidden behind the monotony of (former military) red—brick barracks. There is no differentiation in architecture, no overt representation of cultural identity… but in the future an incubator should be built, a high—tech building as a real—space embodiment of cultural information.

Site of intervention:   A wall of Kunstraum, as a unit of the university. The wall, used as a sediment of meaning, refers to the photograph which document the process of removing the traces of the former military barracks (1995), i.e., covering a military symbol with paint (see book “Branding the Campus” page 11). Urtica’s intervention implies Superseding the traces of the former military barracks (2008) by creating a new symbol on the wall. The method (painting on the wall) and the symbolic representation of the massage “that which changes”, are used as a metaphors for a new creation related to the institution building process, identity transformation, and a Butterfly effect*1 that it might cause. “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Kunstraum set off a tornado at University?”

*1 The Butterfly effect, a concept introduced by Edward Norton Lorenz (meteorologist, mathematician, founder of chaos theory) by question “Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” refers to the phenomenon that even a small changes in the initial state can cause huge effect in the final state of a dynamical system.