Every ten years since 1977, the Skulptur Projekte have been offering a special exhibition experience: Artists develop site-specific works for Münster—sculptures, but also video installations or performances. These projects inscribe themselves in the city’s structural, historical and social contexts while at the same time pointing beyond its boundaries. The artistic explorations are as much concerned with issues of the global present and reflections on the concept of sculpture as with questions about the relationship between public and private space in times of increasing digitalization. On Friday (9 June), the curatorial team—consisting of free-lance curator Britta Peters of Hamburg, the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur curator of contemporary art, Marianne Wagner, and the exhibition’s artistic director Kasper König—introduced the Skulptur Projekte 2017.

12 V
Material: Router, grill, thermoelectric generator, cables, electronics, software, database

5 V
Material: Campfire, wood, steel, thermoelectric generator, cables, electronics

3 V
Material: Aluminium, acrylic glass, thermoelectric generator, electronics, LEDs, tea candles, steel chain

Bartholl’s installations in Münster are all based on thermoelectric devices that directly transform fire—the primeval medium of communication—into electrical energy. At the same time, the artist alludes to three construction projects that have played a key role in Münster’s urban development: the building of the palace (1767) and the canal-water pumping station (1901) and the installation of a DVB-T-antenna (2007) on top of the telecommunications tower. In the underground passageway leading to the palace square, Bartholl has hung up five chandeliers, each consisting of ten thermoelectric LED reading lamps powered by tea candles. In the event of an emergency they could serve to illuminate a shelter. At Münster’s Theater im Pumpenhaus, Bartholl has provided devices for charging mobile phones: visitors can hold sticks—equipped with generators—in a campfire to charge their phone batteries. On the playground at the base of the telecommunications tower Bartholl has set up a small stove, equipped with a thermoelectric generator that provides electricity to the router on the tower without using the Internet. Visitors can log into an offline database via Wi-Fi to download instructions for living without the Internet and upload their own files.

Bartholl’s playful and experimental work contributes to the demystification of technology. It prompts critical, self-determined, and independent interaction with the possibilities of digital networking and is based on an idea closely associated with technē: the arts are combined with craftsmanship, manual dexterity, and self-reflection.

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