BEST BEFORE
[EN] The installation is essentially made up of two synergistic parts: a more open-interpretive and rundown concrete speaker’s desk with traces of an eventful history and a glass panel that contrasts with its materiality and aesthetics and links the sculpture texturally to socio-political issues.
Thererby Best Before appears on several levels: As an interactive installation that allows the viewer to playfully slip into a fictional representative role, as a dystopian historic relict from a bygone democratic era and as a commentary on the relationship between the economy and the state.
[DE] Die Intervention Best Before setzt sich im Wesentlichen aus zwei synergierenden Teilen zusammen: Einem interpretationsoffeneren und heruntergekommenen Redepult aus Beton auf dem die Spuren einer bewegten Geschichte sichtbar sind und einer Glastafel die sich durch ihre Materialität und Ästhetik davon abhebt und die Skulptur textuell mit gesellschaftspolitischen Themen verknüpft.
Best Before tritt so auf mehreren Ebenen in Erscheinung: Als interaktive Installation durch deren Betreten ein spielerischer Rollenwechsel vom demokratischen Souverän zur Repräsentanz ebendieses stattfindet, als dystopisch fiktives Relikt aus einer umfassend entdemokratisierten Gesellschaft und als Kommentar zum Verhältnis von Wirtschaft und Staat.
(Ausführliche Projekteschreibung als pdf)
(2019)
The opening of Best Before was accompanied by a panel discussion on democracy discourses in the context of contemporary art with penalists Yvonne Gimpel (political scientist, managing director of IG Kultur, previously working for UNESCO for 8 years) Christoph Hinterhuber (media artist) and Michael Wimmer (political and cultural scientist). The event was moderated by Martin Fritz and organized by David Prieth as well as Medienkunst Tirol and took place at BRUX Freies Theater Innsbruck.
Due to in-transparent administrative issues Best Before had to be moved after only three days from the Landhausplatz Innsbruck – which is the square in front of the government building – to the court yard of the same building. Thereby the piece has found it’s way to the political heart of the federal province and was facing the Tyrolean Landtag in the second floor but – being swallowed by the government building – it was a lot more hidden from the public.
The incomprehensible permission process by the administration was taken up by two lokal newspapers and a local magazine:
www.tt.com/kultur/buehne/15663428/kein-redebedarf-am-landhausplatz
www.meinbezirk.at/innsbruck/c-lokales/die-vorgangsweise-ist-absurd_a3434052
www.thomasmedicus.at/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/und-heft-best-before.jpg
The incident also lead to a comment about public art by two interest representatives for Art in Tirol. (Ingeborg Erhart from Tiroler Künstler*schaft and Helene Schnitzer from TKI). The text was presented on the Best Before sculpture by actor Michaela Senn.
Best Before during Corona Quarantine – Waltherpark, Innsbruck (above)
Later Best Before was moved in front of Innsbruck’s regional museum Ferdinandeum where the 24mm thick laminated safety glass was demolished by strangers.
Thank you: Eisen Blasy • Kevin Brown • Elisabeth Medicus • medien.kunst.tirol • David Prieth • Helene Schnitzer • Walter Stackler
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