RAQs Media Collective. EVERYTHING ELSE IS ORDINARY. Take your time for this exhibition! It is everything, but ordinary.
4. July 2018
Strawberry – Rhubarb „marmalade“. Sweet and sour opposites attract. A dream team turned into a fruit spread
19. July 2018
“Please do not touch!” Does not apply here at all.
An important rule of almost all museums around the world is: please do not touch! This definitely does not apply to an amazing artwork which is currently presented in K 21. The huge space installation „In orbit”, which hovers at a height of over 25 meters on the ceiling, is a piece of art that you are invited to walk on. More precisely, the viewer is invited to “climb” onto. Tomás Saraceno has constructed a spider web-like structure that is spanned in three levels under the glass dome of K21. Five transparent spheres, huge balls, support the “airy”, almost weightless effect of the composition.
Without net and double bottom
How does it feel up there? A one-page instruction leaflet clarifies the risks: no more than five people at the same time, all over 12 years old, with sturdy shoes, and without any redundant dangling objects on the body, in addition secured with a gray overalls. People who wear glasses and cannot do without them, get a pair of string attachment, which ensure that the glasses remain in front of their eyes. And thos of you who actually dare and take the risk, can actually experience something spectacular. Yes, of course the construction is secured via “net and double bottom“, but does not feel secure at all. The cuddly pillows distributed in the net, hardly support a feeling of lounge-like cosiness. As soon as several persons move in the net, the construct gets into vibration. Because the tension of the ropes changes, as well as the distance of the planes to each other. The presence of the other people in the network is directly felt by vibrations. The floating space brings relationships and resonances to life as an immediate impulse.
Spider webs as inspiration
Anyone who not only wants to “feel” Saraceno’s space-filling network construction and architectural utopia that has become tangible, but wants to understand the theoretical work and inspiration around it, should not miss the installation room set up by Saraceno. Darkened and at the same time effectively lit, living spiders weave their filigree net palaces out of countless threads in glass cabinets. Saraceno had different kind of spiders spin their webs into the web structures that other spiders had woven before. Thus, new hybrid web structures are constructed. Saraceno himself keeps various types of spiders in his studio in order to study their social behavior and their design as a model for his projects. And a true masterpiece of nature is such a spider web anyway.
