Dashed I

– spatial memory
12 mobile phones (interviews), wall graphic, 8 x 2 m,

Deutsch

, 2004
Interviewees: Dijana Arapovic, Margit Brünner, Axel Fussi, Lisa Holzer, Dariusz Kowalski, Rainer Mandl, Timo Novotny, Jeanette Pacher, Paul Petritsch, Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Marc Ries, Nikola Winkler


© Exhibition view, project space, medien.kunst.tirol, Kunstraum Innsbruck, Innsbruck, 2004

Locations

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01 - Paul Petritsch, Wien:

hollow at Wollzeile

02 - Axel Fussi, Wien:

Schwedenplatz

03 - Rainer Mandl, Wien:

Akademisches Gymnasium

04 - Nikola Winkler, Wien:

Hotel Modul

05 - Norbert Pfaffenbichler, Wien:

sewer system, Pilgramgasse

06 - Lisa Holzer, Wien:

20er Haus, Schweizer Garten

07 - Marc Ries, Wien:

Heldenplatz

08 - Timo Novotny, Wien:

factory

09 - Jeanette Pacher, Wien:

small café (Café Mentone)

10 - Dariusz Kowalski, Wien:

glass café at Vienna Westbahnhof

11 - Margit Brünner, Wien:

Südbahnhof

12 - Dijana Arapovic, Wien:

American Bar

Dashed I & II

An interview by Hortense Pisano with Annja Krautgasser

Hortense Pisano

: Your installation Dashed I, shown at the Kunst-raum Innsbruck in 2004, was based on a space-based sociological study. Could you talk about this background research in more detail?

Annja Krautgasser

: In the preparation for this work, I was interested in the way that people orientate themselves spatially. What information does one absorb, either consciously or subconsciously, while moving through a city? At the same time I wanted to find out what spatial information people store for orientation; I first thought about logos, colours or smells. The surprising thing in posing these questions, though, was that my interview partners described the selected spaces very emotionally, that atmospheres, stories and memories were linked to a location in the urban space.

H.P

: How does one come to do almost journalist-style research as an artist?

A.K.

: This study was a step in a new direction for me, which makes Dashed a key work for me to the extent that I was engaging with forms of interview and narrative for the first time. I suddenly had the feeling that an artwork could feed deeply from what people bring to it.

H.P.

: Marginal locations are often described in the interviews concerned, like a “small café” or a “hollow.”

A.K.

: I think that this is where the sociological aspect of the work comes out again. Of course, the choice of location provides an insight into social structures. It makes a difference whether the description is of the inside of a car, an exhibition space, or a kid’s room. I think that the way somebody talks about a place says a lot about the place—and about the people.


H.P.

: While Dashed I designed a kind of imaginary network of paths within the City of Vienna, in Dashed II one encounters different places and countries in the form of narratives, presented next to one another in the installation. So we hear about every detail of the interior of what was a child’s room in Melbourne, or another fascinated report of the bizarre design of an underground club in New York. In other words,Dashed II shows that there aren’t any homogenous spaces but many different forms of living space.

A.K.

: My interest in the second version, Dashed II, which is in English, was primarily in the range of spaces selected, and in the possibility of treating the notion of a space more abstractly. Of course, Dashed II is also about globalisation. Despite the global diversity and wide spread of spaces, they are still perceived and described in a similar way.



© Exhibition view, CAT OPEN – BASE, Flak tower Arenbergpark, Vienna, 2004