Last week we spent four days in Munich participating in the exhibit and panel discussions at Overtures – Cultural realms in the post-fossil age. It was a part of the larger Klimaherbst ongoing series of events and took place at the Glockenbachwerkstatt. Elizabeth was there as the Dubai based representative of Hot Spots and I was offered to sit in as an interdisciplinary participant which meant that I got to go around to all of the artists and have really fascinating discussions with each of them about their work, the world, art and climate change. It stimulated many ideas for everyone about new projects and collaborations. artcircolo kunstprojekt coordinated the event and Serafine Lindemann, artcircolo’s director did a wonderful job of organizing everything and leading the two day panel discussion. It was a part of artcircolo’s larger art series, overtures.
The artists that participated in Overtures were:
Karin Bergdolt (D) with Ann T. Rosenthal (USA) and Elizabeth Monoian (Dubai): Hot Spots, Gas Station Memorials
Empfangshalle (D): Ja du bist es, (Yes you’re the one), intervention with the Lehman Sisters
René Francisco (Cuba): Intercambio Buenavista, social art project
Andrej Kamnik (Slowenia): Wind Model, Installation
Kalle Laar (D): Call me! and ethics disco, sound installation
The Hot Spots exhibit set up in the Tesla Motors showroom down the street. Seeing that showroom was like a glance into the future. In fact since most of the world does not yet know about the fact that there are indeed very high performance electric vehicles driving the streets at 500km per 45 minute charge in 2009 (meaning today) it was sort of like a pre-museum where on display were the relics of the future. Bearing witness to the tangible revolution right there in downtown Munich was quite inspiring and instilled in me a sense of possibilities and hope.
Of the ideas that came to me out of the events and conversations were things like:
1. a sound installation that harnesses the energy of a crowd screaming and uses it to run an electronic display.
2. a poster campaign that would work off of the inherent nationalistic instincts of people with images of carbon intense activities and objects that are for example “Un-American”.
3. a sound installation that harnesses the exponential effects of the oscillating resonance of mass in order to output more energy than the input energy.
4. land art sculptures to power the 2018 Munich winter Olympics.
Everyone was riffing off of everyone else and it was a hotbed of idea exchange. The panel discussions were really engaging – the first day was spent talking about the individual artists’ work and the second day was focused on discussing ideas for collaborative projects.
Some of the other interdisciplinary participants:
Marian Bichler
Dr. Andrea Zell
Gunnar Braun
Sabine Nallinger
Dr. Martin Richartz
Dr. Bernd Wiemann
