Parallel Campaign / Parallelaktion

08.09.2013 - 30.09.2013

ReMap 4, Athínai / Ellás (venue)

The department for Art and Photography of the Academy of Fine Art Vienna presents Parallel Campaign / Parallelaktion. The artists Martin Guttmann, Michael Höpfner, and Sonia Leimer and 35 students have initiated a collaborative work consisting of two parts: one is a bar and exhibition space located in a residential building in Giatrakou 10, and the other is guided walks within the city of Athens.

The title Parallel Campaign / Parallelaktion was taken from the book The Man Without Qualities by Austrian author Robert Musil.... Set in Vienna in 1913, the text is used as an intellectual and poetic guideline for the project and will appear as text fragments on posters in public space. Musil writes about possibilities and potentialities of actions and non-actions of different social characters in a city shattered by early modernity.

Diotima Bar, a workshop by Sonia Leimer, is a collaborative social sculpture in the form of a bar. The form of the bar is a large round table, made of tables that the Academy students will collect in the city of Athens in the days leading up to the campaign. These old tables will be cast into a round concrete shape so that they become part of a new collective form, while still being the main support structure of the concrete plate. Activities like performances, talks, projections, and discussions will activate the bar during our time in Athens. The bar produces a space for possibilities.

The five guided walks focus on potential and loss of urban and public space. Artist Michael Höpfner and a group of students will explore different zones of Athens. The group will start from Giatrakou 10, venture out, react to, and discuss the fragmented social and architectural zones of Athens in different locations. The daily expeditions will be documented and become part of the activities around the bar.

[Quelle: https://web.archive.org/web/20160621220040/http://remapkm.org/4/projects/department-art-and-photography-academy-of-fine-arts-vienna/ ]