Spread the Word, 2012
interactive room installation
wood, small-scale printouts, confetti canons, foil, permanent pen, tape, video
The work comprises an index of words, thousands of small-scale printouts of each word used in that index and hundreds of confetti shooters. Words used in political party statements mentioned on posters hung in public spaces in Germany in the recent years are separated from their contexts and shown in an alphabetical order. In this way, each word gains an independent position. But in a way, this independence is still dependent on the statements. Because, by putting all these words in one pot, the work creates an index of words, which also gives statistical information on recent political topics and their psychological behavior. While this whole process leaves the visitors with a group of words and with their meanings, the work also welcomes them to build their own statements for possible new meanings. Thus the work completes itself with the contribution of the visitors. Each contributor who builds his/her statement by using the index of words is asked to write this statement on the white surface of the two shooters. Afterwards, both shooters are filled with the printouts of the words that the contributor selected for his/her statement. The contributor keeps one of the shooters with himself/herself and the other stays with the work. In this way, one edition of the new statement stays permanently with the work, the other edition spreads the new combination of words back to the public space.
Installation view; Neues Museum Nürnberg
photos 1,2,5: Anette Kradisch, 6,7: Anna Luft, 8: video still, taken from
Installation view; Neues Museum Nürnberg
photos 1,2,5: Anette Kradisch, 6,7: Anna Luft,
8: video still, taken from the video “Making of ars viva Preis für Bildende Kunst des Kulturkreises”
