The 9th international, interdisciplinary and topic centered exhibition project 2019/20
11 years of arT and impulsE at G.A.S-station Berlin + Between freedom and dictatorship | the wall until 9th October 2020
Opening 12th October 2019, 7 p.m. Die Projektlinie zwischen Zwicki und Zwacki / introduction by the initiators Elisa Asenbaum and Thomas Maximilian Stuck. Performance.
In 2007 we wrote down our ideals and goals in the form of intentions and published them on our website. Now, twelve years later, we want to give an overview of the 11 years of the exhibition and its development. The publications of the works of over 350 art, literature and science contributors will be presented on space-filling, large objects, whereby our publications will be transformed into three-dimensional objects. All works will be shown in this special presentation once again and we invite the contributors to participate in the project (wall cycle and events) and to celebrate with us!
Folding carton mounted on wall in preparation for the literature
On the opening, we will present all the contributions of the fine arts from previous years on a three-dimensional object, as well as all the catalogues of our exhibitions will be available for browsing. In the course of the exhibition further objects will be built and shown to the individual emphasis (video, literature and science).
Artist catalogues in the basement
We want to stimulate a discussion about the antipodes freedom and dictatorship also in the transferred sense. This does not only mean the political aspects and nuances between freedom and dictatorially approach as well as the scope for action in democratic systems which is underlying the free market economy, but also a reflection on one's own wishes for diction and the adaptation of habits of thoughts and procedures, especially in artistic creation, to the given social and cultural conditions.
Within this framework, the cycle Between freedom and dictatorship | the wall starts.
Artists and writers give artistic form to this current topic on a wall in the large exhibition space and we´ll start the cycle with a video installation.
Videostills, There´s A Wall Between Us, Wolfgang Neipl
Wolfgang Neipl There Is A Wall Between Us, 2019
Video installation, beamer projection, 15 min loop
Synthetic, photorealistic video animation
Escape as a last resort from poverty or terror in one's own country causes people to take a life-threatening path across the water. The great "freedom" before their eyes they follow their hopes and desires. But the places of this supposed freedom remain closed, because the administrators of the places fear for their privileged prosperity and do not want to share it with others.
The first wall of the cycle + Between Freedom and Dictatorship | the Wall deals with this topic.
With the video installation There Is A Wall Between Us, the artist Wolfgang Neipl takes an artistic stand on the subject.
"The fact of the dramatic refugee situation demands a socio-political point of view from my artistic work. In my work, the wall between freedom and dictatorship is the water of the raging sea. Floating on it, a carpet of letters forms the word "freedom". In a metamorphosis, this lettering gradually changes into its apparent counterpart, the "dictatorship". One always leads back to the other and there is no way out in this model".
The artist symbolizes the dreams of the shipwrecked as flotsam, which is distributed to present guest´s.
Ralf Tekaat
Panikraum, 2019. Installation, 500 x 290 cm
pencil, coloured pencil on paper, different types of paper formats
For some years now, objects have been appearing in Ralf Tekaat's drawings that oscillate between flying objects, surveillance cameras, bunkers and weapons systems. Often it is not clear which objects are represented. These are hybrid mixtures that address various fields of association, thus giving the viewer a certain scope for interpretation.
The title of the second wall design of the cycle + Between Freedom and Dictatorship I the Wall is Panikraum.
Ralf Tekaat borrowed the term from the American word 'panic room', which designates a shelter. It can be located inside an apartment or in an office complex. When threatened it serves as a secure retreat, out from reach from outside. Some of his drawings can be interpreted as retreats or bunkers. At the same time, however, they are also reminiscent of temporary buildings known from refugee collection centres. The transition from (military) shelter to prison is fluid. The border fences of this world have inspired other drawings.
The artist places the intended reference in the title of his series of drawings. The meaning of the word 'Panikraum' remains unclear, however, as to whether the panic room protects against panic or causes panic. The more one deals with fear scenarios, the greater the fear becomes in everyday life.
The wall installation Panikraum points to the tipping point between inclusion and exclusion, regarding protection, control and dictation and attack.
Grosse Versprechungen, Harald Köhneke
Harald Köhneke
Grosse Versprechungen (Great Promises), 2020 Installation, 300 x 55 x 55 cm
Wood, Wrapping Paper, Rope
Harald Köhneke's work consists of two large cubes that protrude from the wall into the room. The wooden containers are wrapped in paper, like gifts, and each has a bow. Köhneke chose plain brown paper for the wrapping of the cubes and a blue rope as material for the decorative ribbon. From the outside the packages are hardly distinguishable from each other, yet the artist evokes the association that one of the packages symbolizes freedom and the other dictatorship. His works are usually large-format and are reminiscent of familiar or semantically coded objects, which, through small interventions, stimulate reflection.
The puristic formal implementation, including the title of the work Grosse Versprechungen (Great Promises), allows for a wide range of interpretations embedded in the theme Between Freedom and Dictatorship.
King Oxxo´s Diktatur, Oliver Orthuber
Oliver Orthuber
King Oxxo’s Diktatur, 2020 Installation, 264 overpainted sheets (29.7 x 21 cm)
Paper, Acrylic, Video, Sound
For the King Oxxo series cycle, he used Page magazine, which is considered an expert magazine for design code and business, as source material. It forms the background of his overpaintings, so to speak, and is remixed and transformed into other content by Orthuber’s editing.
In principle, everything that has the power to determine something (person, community, thing or law, etc.) can be seen as a form of dictation. Oliver Orthuber humorously takes up this tightrope walk, which includes the topic of the call for entries, and subjects the journal material to a shrill transformation process. The ‚expert tips for design code and business‘, which are subject to the power of fashion, the market and money, are brought under the rule of King Oxxo.
On the opening day of the installation, a copy-sampled remix of the room-in-room installation with sound is projected onto the wall paved with messages, which fully corresponds to the formal and temporal dictation of the artist.
Gegenwartsverstopfung: Das Plastik starrt zurück, Stephanie Hanna zu Thun und Lassen
Stephanie Hanna zu Thun und Lassen
Gegenwartsverstopfung: Das Plastik starrt zurück, 2020
Installation 500 x 290 cm, approx. 70 boxes each 30 x 40 x 12 cm
Assemblages, packaging materials plastic waste, various adhesives.
Stephanie Hanna zu Thun und Lassen works deal with the social environment and naturalized habits of our consumer society and its power relations.
In the installation Gegenwartsverstopfung: Das Plastik starrt zurück on the theme of freedom and dictatorship I the wall she fills the wall with multi-functional boxes, which are used for example at the weekly market for mushrooms, and transforms them into showcases of about 70 assemblages. In some cases, traces of the labels can still be found; various packaging materials, found objects, pieces of plastic, small plastic objects are transformed into shapes, figures that stare at you as if they were alive with eyes. Therefore also the chosen title: Present constipation: The plastic stares back (Gegenwartsverstopfung: Das Plastik starrt zurück).
Die Wand / KONJUGATIONEN / Über das Irren, Gisela Weimann
Gisela Weimann
Die Wand / KONJUGATIONEN / Über das Irren, 2020 Photos, Texts Objects, Videos / Wall painting
Gisela Weimann can look back on an untiring creative work of many years. The theme between freedom and dictatorship challenges her to a process-like research. Using personal experiences, the insights of others, quotations, traces of contemporary history, revised visual material, photographs, drawings, literary texts and texts from her diary notes, the artist creates an illustrated wall of contemporary history that revolves around human wandering.
"I conjugate the 'erring' through all persons and cases, in the indicative, subjunctive, as imperative and as interrogation. This preliminary linguistic study has made it even clearer to me that not only I, but also you, he/she, we, she, they, that all err, have erred, will err."
Link Livestream 9.10.2020 Fr. 9th October 2020, 7 pm - Opening focus LITERATURE
with poems from “Writers in Prison” on the wall / P.E.N. Austria
Fensterdichtung, a poetic installation by Astrid Nischkauer, Künst, a wall installation by Albert Markert.
The Austrian P.E.N.-Club at G.A.S-station
7 pm - Opening and introduction by Elisa Asenbaum. Presentation of the activities and information about "Writers in Prison" and the committee "Literatur without borders" by Dr. A. Helmuth Niederle, President of the Austrian P.E.N. Club
Followed by a reading by P.E.N. writers: Susanne Dobesch-Giese, Helmuth Niederle and Kurt F. Svatek.
Sonja Solarte-Orejuela reads and sings from her Poems (live at G.A.S-station).
Link Livestream 10.10.2020 Sat. 10th October 2020 Poetry, Reading and Video documentation
7 pm - Poetry / Reading at G.A.S-station Mariola Grzyb, Norbert Lange, Georg Leß.
Virtual visit by Astrid Nischkauer and Elisa Asenbaum at G.A.S-station.
8:30 pm - DER AUSGESCHLOSSENE DRITTE by Elisa Asenbaum
Short video of the literary performance with Matthias Neukirch on the International Day of Nonviolence 2019 by PEN at the Presseclub Concordia Vienna.
Due to the simultaneous limited number of 10 visitors during the hybrid event in the G.A.S-station, we ask for seat reservations under: info@2gas-station.net
Albert Markert
Künst, 1978-2020 Wall installation 180x500 cm apr. 240 Text-Picture-Collages each 20x28,7 cm
Collages, Fotos, Drawings, Newspaper clippings, Found objects on paper, Photocopies.
Since the beginning of his studies Albert Markert has been concerned with the relationship between art production and art reception, the art market and its artificially created values.
His extensive wall installation Künst comprises around 240 collages created between 1978 and 2020. The sheets, with their impetuously mixed character, are collaged on paper from drawings, newspaper clippings, handwritten material, photographs and reworked found material. A lot of quotations, original and modified by the artist, satirized and also figural quotations, which mark a time stamp, can be found on the works. Artist revolves around art production, art distribution, art consumption and art reception. Freedom and diction are the anchor points.
Artistic freedom has long since solidified into a dogma devoid of content, degenerated into a tyrannical term that asserts itself dictatorially and serves to justify irrelevancies in content. The measure of artistic freedom serves as an indication of the measure of freedom in a society, says Künst.
focus SCIENCE (online only and at the Schaufenster) 5.-21.11.2020
Due to the current circumstances in connection with the COVID-19 virus (Coronavirus) and its consequences for all of us, no events can take place in the G.A.S-station in the month of November and the G.A.S-station goes online with its presentation of the scientific focus into the digital world and is additionally present in the Schaufenster of G.A.S-station. The analog events will be postponed until fall 2021. We would also like to thank all participants and contributors who have made this possible through their flexibility.
We wish you all the best and stay healthy.
Kind regards
G.A.S-station-Team
Elisa & Thomas
Some contributions from the science of the 11 years of exhibition:
Joachim Bauer (Biologische Psychiatrie) | Thomas Bedürftig (Mathematik, Philosophie) | Franco Berardi (Medientheorie) | Reinhold A. Bertlmann (Theoretische Physik, Quantentheorie) | Thomas Born (Kunst-, Medienwissenschaft) | Aida Bosch (Soziologie) | Časlav Brukner (Physik, Grundlagenforschung) | Martin Carrier (Philosophie, Wissenschaftsgeschichte) | Madalina Diaconu (Philosophie) | Hans Diebner (Systemwissenschaft) | Wolf Guenter Thiel (Kunsthistorik) | Franz Embacher (Physik, Mathematik, Didaktik) | Ulrich Frey, Johannes Frey (Philosophie/ Germanistik) | Vittorio Gallese (Neurowissenschaft) | Viktor Gröger (Festkörperphysik) | Heiko Hecht (experimentelle Psychologie) | Anna Elisa Heine (Kunsttherapie) | Brigitte Holzinger (Psychologie) | Verena Kuni (Kunst-, Medien- Kulturwissenschaft) | Karl W. Kratky (Physik Physiologischer Prozesse) | Till Kreutzer (Rechtswissenschaft) | Jean-Luc Lehners (Kosmologie) | Wolfgang Marktl (Medizin) | Otto Neumaier (Philosophie) | Herwig Peterlik (Physik) | Herbert Pietschmann (Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Physik) | Stephan Puchegger (Physik) | Hartmut Rosa (Soziologie) | Carlo Rovelli (Theoretische Physik) | Yvette Sánchez (Kultur- und Literaturwissenschaft) | Nina Samuel (Kunst und Kulturgeschichte) | James A. Shapiro (Microbiology) | Bernhard Weingartner, Stefan Rotter (Theoretische Physik) | Franz-Günter Winkler (Physik).
During the 11 years of the exhibition, a number of scientific contributions on various topics were shown. We are proud to have inspired renowned scientists for the projects. They enriched the exhibitions with lectures, book contributions, professional articles, posters, videos and selected texts, which are also interesting for a professional audience.
A review of the variety of scientific contributions from the 11 years of the exhibition time is given by Elisa Asenbaum. Some contributions are picked out and examined more closely. (22 min)
About the world of quantum theory. Lecture by Franz Embacher at the GAS-station.
In the video lecture, Dr. Franz Embacher introduces the elusive world of quantum theory, illustrating the behavior of quantum mechanical objects. Using a vivid example, the Elitzur-Vaidmann bomb test, he raises questions about the nature of nature which hopefully cause headaches. (45 min)
Alternatively you may watch the video at the Website of Franz Embacher where you can find also more informationen about the topic and to the lecture in specific.
Dr. Franz Embacher is a theoretical physicist at the University of Vienna. His primary research interests are in the fields of cosmology, quantum theory, and quantum gravity, and whether quantum theory needs to be modified when applied to the universe as a whole. His second field of activity is the didactics of natural science subjects, especially mathematics and physics, the development of new forms of teaching and learning, and the cooperation with teachers, student teachers and adult education institutions. He is an eLearning representative of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Vienna and co-author of the web platform www.mathe-online.at. For many years he has been active in the basic mathematical education of students in teacher training and is the author of the textbook "Mathematical Foundations for the Teacher Training in Physics".
Revisting Evolution in the 21th century. Video-Lecture by James A. Shapiro (engl.)
Prof. Shapiro has been a leading scientific critic of orthodox evolutionary theory for 20 years. "Evolution: A View from the 21st Century” tries to explain what molecular biology and genome sequencing have taught us over the past 60 years. His vision also has major implications for evolutionary computation, information science, and the growing synthesis of physical and biological sciences. Furthermore, it might well be an input for non-biologists to re-consider their lives and world view in a new perspective. (1h 38 min)
James A. Shapiro is Professor of Microbiology at the University of Chicago. He has a BA in English Literature from Harvard (1964) and a PhD in Genetics from Cambridge (1968). William Hayes was his PhD supervisor, and Sydney Brenner was an unofficial adviser during his time in Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar.
His thesis, The Structure of the Galactose Operon in Escherichia coli K12, contains the first suggestion of transposable elements in bacteria. He confirmed this hypothesis in 1968 during his postdoctoral tenure as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow in the laboratory of Francois Jacob at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. The following year, as an American Cancer Society fellow in Jonathan Beckwith's laboratory at Harvard Medical School, he and his colleagues used in vivo genetic manipulations to clone and purify the lac operon of E. coli, an accomplishment that received international attention.
In 1979, Prof. Shapiro formulated the first precise molecular model for transposition and replication of phage Mu and other transposons.
In 1984, he published the first case study of what is now called "adaptive mutation." He found that selection stress triggers a tremendous increase in the frequency of Mu-mediated fusions, Together with Pat Higgins in 1989, he showed that activation of Mu replication and transposition is spatially organized in bacterial colonies. Since 1992, he has been writing about the importance of biologically regulated natural genetic engineering as a fundamental new concept in evolution science. Together with Ahmed Bukhari and Sankhar Adhya, Prof. Shapiro organized the first conference on DNA insertion elements in May, 1976, at Cold Spring Harbor laboratory.
He is editor of DANN Insertion Elements, Episomes and Plasmids (1977 with Bukhari and Adhya), Mobile Genetic Elements (1983), and Bacteria as Multicellular Organisms (1997 with Martin Dworkin). From 1980 until her death in 1992, Prof. Shapiro maintained a close scientific and personal friendship with Barbara McClintock, whom he credits with opening his eyes to new ways of thinking about science in general and evolution in particular.
Prof. Shapiro has been a leading scientific critic of orthodox evolutionary theory for 20 years. Following a teaching stint at the University of Havana (1970-1972) and research at Brandeis (1972-1973), Prof. Shapiro moved to a faculty position at the University of Chicago in 1973. He has been there since then with occasional sabbaticals and visting professor appointments at the Institut Pasteur, Tel Aviv University, Cambridge University and the University of Edinburgh, where he was the Darwin Prize Visiting Professor in 1993.
He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the AAAS and the Linnean Society of London. In 2001, he received an honorary O.B.E. from Queen Elizabeth for services to higher education in the UK and US.
Matthias Fitz
a beautiful thing, 2019
Video installation, 8:09 loop
The experimental, narrative video shows Donald Trump in an alienated setting. The documentary footage of an appearance by the President of the United States is broken down into rhythmic sequences and put together again, with the movements being shown at a slower rate.
The colors are brightly colored and the picture is provided with various disruptive elements; this gives the video a special aesthetic, and the rowed sequences are reminiscent of expressionist moments in the digital. Trump's public appearances are usually peppered with a theatrical impact.
In a beautiful thing, the 'star' Donald Trump is embedded in the choral singing of a Rolling Stones song (which the president often used for his appearances), but Fitz contrasts his appearance with philosophical content about being and transience Texts by Rainer Maria Rilke underlays and carry the visual events, you can hear off-voices that read extracts from writings by the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who died in 1926. Rilke, a highly sensitive poet, possessed the art of using language in his poems and lyrical texts in a subtil way to approach emotional and spiritual content.
"If you look at the current global political situation from a distance, this look creates a feeling of a certain strangeness. People and things are in orders and positions that seem strange."
Postponed exhibitions:
focus VIDEO postponed to 2021
8:30 pm Film selection from the 11 years
presented by the Initiators
E. Asenbaum and T. M. Stuck of G.A.S-station
focus SCIENCE postponed to 2021
1st Day Opening focus SCIENCE
5 pm Guided tour of the scientific contributions
with Elisa Asenbaum and Harald Hofer
6:15 pm ABOUT THE WORLD OF QUANTUM THEORY
Video lecture by Franz Embacher (UniVie)/german
8 pm Revisting Evolution in the 21th century
Video lecture by James A. Shapiro (UChicago)
2nd Day
6 pm How do the laws of nature "emerge" and are they fixed?
Development history of scientific laws
Lecture with guided tour by Harald Hofer
7:30 pm Image, mirror image and optical illusions
Lecture by Prof. Dr. Heiko Hecht (JGUMainz)/germanBild, Spiegelbild und optische Täuschungen
3rd Day
2:30 pm More is different: reductionism and emergence
Lecture by Núria Munoz Garganté (MPIWG-Berlin)
3:50 pm Determinism and indeterminism in physics: can we be free?
Lecture by Flavio Del Santo (IQOQI-Wien)
5:05 pm Interactive games on the topics stimulated by the previous talks.
Moderated by Chiara Cardelli (IQOQI-Vienna)
18:00 Informal discussion with drinks
7:30 pm What exactly is time?
Lecture by Dr. Axel Kleinschmidt (Max-Planck-Institute for Gravitational Physics Potsdam/Albert-Einstein-Institute)/german
All catalogues and broshures
you may find now on the new Publications page
