Drag and Drop

What work did you develop for the dialogue fields?

Simon: “For the dialogue fields, I wanted to portray the citizens of Sonnenberg. I realised that you see new faces and meet new people every day when you walk around the Sonnenberg. I therefore wanted to create portraits of the Sonnenberg, which can then be seen as an installation.”

Do you notice any differences to other residencies now that you’ve been invited to a city with a personal connection?

Simon: “Definitely. You come into contact with people more quickly and also have a few more connections. Somehow I was back in relatively quickly. After the first two days, I already had the feeling that I had arrived well and was able to get started straight away. That was the biggest difference to other cities. Back then, I perceived Sonnenberg as a blatant Nazi mountain that I always gave a wide berth. Now I was amazed at how diverse the urban area is. I wanted to pursue this approach further. With the portraits, I want to show how much has changed compared to the Chemnitz of 10 or 15 years ago when I moved away.”

What can visitors expect from your presentation?

Simon: “In principle, it will be an installation that you have to spend a lot of time in front of. Ultimately, it will be a screen-based work. When you stand in front of the installation, you probably think it’s a portrait at first. If you stand in front of it for longer, you will see that the face slowly evolves and morphs from one face to another. I believe that the question can then arise as to how much change it takes to recognise a new person and what this triggers in the viewer.”

What kind of work have you developed for the dialogue fields?

Susanna: “For the dialogue fields, I’m working with Google Maps and the feedback structures that can be stored via reviews, comments and image uploads. I want to utilise the potential of the feedback structures artistically.”

How quickly did you realise that you wanted to develop this project and go in this direction? Was it an idea that you had from the start or did it come about spontaneously?

Susanna: “The project came about here. I found it very exciting to be invited for about a month as part of the dialogue fields and to engage with the city on site. It’s very exciting, but it also put a bit of pressure on me because I was afraid that I wouldn’t come up with a good idea. But we had an exciting input right at the beginning in Chemnitz with the Welcome Days. The idea then actually materialised in discussions with the others.”

What can visitors expect from your presentation and the project in general?

Susanna: “It’s the starting signal for a project without any claim to completeness. There will be a walk with a very personal and associative tour of the Sonnenberg via Google Maps entries and the topic of constantly evaluating and categorising things into one to five stars. The people of Chemnitz and the rest of the world, as we are all measured by Google Maps, can use it. Through the open structure, anyone can rate places and upload photos or text to start a public debate.”

What kind of project have you come up with for this year’s dialogue fields?

Sendi: “When we were contacted by Klub Solitaer, we immediately had the idea that the city itself should become the protagonist of our project. We developed two projects – “DOITYOURSELF” is a performance in which a picture is drawn collectively. The action takes place in a park, for example. We start painting there using audio instructions and invite people to take part.
In the second project, “Trackeds”, passers-by are unwitting participants. The film recordings of the city are made at different locations and the movements of the cars and people captured in the process contribute to the creation of a new work.”

Did you already have an image of Chemnitz in advance or did you discard an old image of the city?

Sendi: “No, we only knew that Chemnitz had been chosen as the European Capital of Culture 2025, just like our city of Nova Gorica. On the day we arrived, it was cold and rainy, so there was nobody on the street. However, my perception of the city changed over the next few days. Only then did I realise how much is happening here and that people actually live here. I know that might sound absurd to people from Chemnitz, but so far I’ve only met very open-minded people. That’s why my image has only changed for the better, if at all.”

What do you want to say with your work in the dialogue fields?

Sendi: “We actually want the people of Chemnitz to share their ideas and dreams about the city. We just like being three artists behind the camera and want to observe what happens and exchange ideas with the residents.“

Jurij: “It is typical of our work that we create an environment that focuses on public space. The participants create the art. The interesting thing about our projects is that the art is therefore not just dependent on us. Ultimately, we are not only artists, but also observers.”

What were your first associations when you heard about “drag & drop”?

Niklas: “When I heard about drag & drop, I thought: of course – it has something to do with GUIs, with computers, with interface interaction, with dragging and dropping files. On the other hand, it also fits very well with what my partner Kati and I do artistically together. We often work digitally and in public spaces, which means that we take our physical installations with us (“dragging”) and then also where we find an audience (“dropping”).”

What kind of project have you come up with for this year’s Dialogue Fields?

Niklas: “The project we are currently working on together is a “vector collector”, a mobile device that we use to collect vectors. The idea is that people can make drawings with a joystick. The images are stored digitally and we build up an archive of vector drawings. We will process the vectors in the final week with the aim of leaving something lasting on the Sonnenberg.”

Digitality in Chemnitz’s urban space, especially on the Sonnenberg: science fiction or everyday life?

Niklas:“I immediately noticed the network coverage via Freifunk on the Sonnenberg. I’d like to have something like that in Berlin too. Chemnitz is already further ahead than other cities and that’s a great thing.”

What were your first impressions of Chemnitz?

TheSystemCollective: “What we noticed were the many derelict sites. That a lot of things are being rebuilt – we have the feeling that we’ve arrived at the beginning of an unfolding process and that suits us quite well.”

Is there a favourite tool or software that you particularly enjoy working with?

TheSystemCollective:“It’s important to us to work with as much free software as possible. This includes Blender, for example, a 3D programme. On the programming side, we use Leaflet, Three.js and our own open source programmes; our map comes from OpenStreetMap. These are all programmes that have a participatory approach. We also try to convey this approach to the artists we introduce to the digital world. Normally, software makes the user the product; here, however, we are the owners of what we create. In the same way, it is important to us that the artists continue to own the work they place on our map.”

Tell us about one of your works that you like to think back on.

theSystemCollective: “Our artistic collaboration began at an exhibition in an empty shop in Vienna. The works created there were then digitally saved and transformed into virtual sculptures in the urban space. Artists from all disciplines were able to distribute their works throughout Vienna. The exhibition series was called “TheSystem – Phase.1″. Many artists whose exhibitions were cancelled approached us and motivated us to continue. It became clear: what we are doing is a museum without a fixed location. We are not curators per se, we share the platform for our own concepts and their placement in public space.”

What is your first association with drag & drop, our theme this year?

Philipp: “The first thing I think of is that little computer hand with the Mickey Mouse glove and that plop sound when you drop a file into a folder.”

How else does your work differ from your work here in Chemnitz?

Philipp:“My practice has a lot to do with text; I write. At PARA, we all do a bit of everything, getting a feel for the area, which is what I usually mainly do.

My work here is not that different – I’ve read all sorts of things to do with smoke – I’ve read about whaling, the production of whale oil as an illuminant, books about London at the time of industrialisation, because I’m trying to get a feel for what it was like to live in a classic working-class neighbourhood like Sonnenberg when it was so heavily smoky. To open up this idea, through texts and images, is a typical approach for me. This morning, for example, I read a text by Heinrich Böll about the Ruhr area, one of Germany’s industrial centres. I read a lot about the coal phase-out, everything that falls under the complex of “social transformation”, about the shift from the fundamental process of burning things to something new and unknown.”

“PARA’s view is the view of this era from an assumed future. Looking back from a speculative time to a past that is our present. Looking from the future to the present opens up a lot. The Sonnenberg lends itself to this because you can see that a lot of things are just starting to happen here – the Kreativhof is a classic example, because now people are thinking: what is industry that is future-proof and sustainable?”

Tell us about one of your works that you like to think back on.

Philipp: “The Ruins of Speculation in Frankfurt. It was about the financial market’s ideas of the future. These are very specific ideas, those of an open, statistically modellable future, an undefined future. We realised that this idea would one day be just as much a thing of the past as, for example, the ideas about the future of antiquity are today, which is why we declared the Taunusanlage a World Heritage Site. We have shown people round the site and talked to many of them. They reacted intensively to the work; the fiction of travelling back in time that we brought into play was very strong in some cases.”