last night we went to a Berlin Biennale event at the Schwerbelastungskörper which is this behemoth concrete cylinder that Hitler built as an engineering test. good information, images, and thought-provoking extrapolations can be found at Schwerbelastungskörper (in the links list to the right).
specifically it seems they needed to find out if Berlin's sandy soil could support the gargantuan triumphal arch Hitler was planning. the fact that the Schwerbelastungskörper sank a full 7 inches in the 1st year or so, and the fact that the arch was never built, well it sort of fascinatingly fits in with my interest in impermanent constructions of meaning. I mean previously I had been looking at and considering the construction of temporary stages and sculptures and triumphal arches (starting with those built in medieval times and the renaissance as part of festivals, royal weddings, etc) but it is good to be reminded that all symbols are ultimately temporary or in this case, over before they begin. I think this will prove useful.
last night's event---it was connected to a documentation project that artist Susanne Kriemann has been doing for the past few years. I'll be seeing her photos in the Biennale exhibition, last night she and others led people around and around the Schwerbelastungskörper as they recited facts or ideas about it and other facist building projects and the commercialization of everything (in english and german). meanwhile there was a woman singing vaguely cathartic or catatonic vocals to this repeating circular electronica music. I don't know if it was a conscious decision or not, but one of my favorite parts was the fact that the organizers were using the Schwerbelastungskörper to store refreshments (refreshments that yes, they were charging money for, see above reference to "commercialization"). so occasionally you would see a caterer duck into this forbiddingly grim Nazi-era structure and come out with some beer and fruit juice. we left before ring-around-the-rosey came to an end, I like to imagine that it went on all night and that a crop circle of sorts now surrounds that ugly beast.
Tom and I did some successful dumpster-diving in the neighborhood here and right now I am cutting open and then sewing together old bike inner tubes to create dark environment shrouds for the meaning machines
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