Public Parks
An audiovisual performance and sound installation of urban landscapes.
By Kurt Holzkämper and Thomas Marek
Wherever asphalt covers the earth, a longing for greenery arises. With the onset of industrialization, more and more people moved into the cities, parks that had previously been reserved for the aristocracy were made accessible to the public, and new facilities were created. For a good hundred years, urban planners and architects have been looking for creative ways to design and play with public space.
This field of tension between urban and green space is explored by bassist and composer Kurt Holzkämper and tap dancer and photographer Thomas Marek in their new project "Public Parks". Five well-known green spaces - the Schloßgarten in Stuttgart, Planten un Blomen in Hamburg, the Tempelhof in Berlin, the Prater in Vienna and the Schlosspark in Eisenstadt - are visualized, composed to music, condensed and distorted in an interplay of music, film and photography. The result is five abstract and perceptible individual portraits of urban landscapes.
In an exhibition space, filled musically by compositions in a surround sound system, video projections and large-scale photographs, these portraits come together. In the process, the parks themselves become instruments: underpasses, park benches or trash cans, and even plants become novel sound sources with the help of electronic sensors and tap sounds. Depending on the listening and viewing angle, the compositions change - visitors moving around the space or sitting on a bench in the middle of the room experience the park as a performance and immerse themselves in a sensual abstraction of urban-green worlds with the audiovisual sound installations.
gefördert vom Fonds Darstellende Künste aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien
