Stadt am Rande

The exhibition 'Stadt am Rande' is based on a selection of artworks predominantly by Berlin-based artists that explore the various aspects, fabrics, and subtext of an urban topology constantly in flux, harboring indiviuals, networks, and structures struggling for identiy, definition, visualisation and attention. By way of digital devices, engineering tools and software, as well as by using analogue means of creating minor ruptures or alterations in the topological surface the artists question, re-interpret, expand, visualise and explore the urban topology that sourrounds them. The artworks are particularly unusual in that they also manage to capture a shift in the current Zeitgeist, an elusive feel that the urban environment evokes, reactions to it, as well as the way those reactions in turn change the urban topology. Distinctive of this perspective is the rhythm and pace of many of the works, the allegories they use, and the way they chose to explore the topology and present it.

While Berlin serves as a metaphore, a backdrop, or a platform in some of the artworks, the typical and obvious characteristics remain a side note, become marginal. This is expressed in the title 'Stadt am Rande' ('Stadt' as the German for 'city' and 'am Rande' as a phrase and a word play for 'marginal', 'at the rims', or 'as a side note', 'to some extent'). The notion of urban topology is re-defined and expanded, as the perspective shifts to the subtle, the unobtrusive, the hidden, the imagined, the elusive.

In this context, the works of Michelle Teran, Maria Vedder, Niklas Goldbach, and Marc Aschenbrenner look at human traces, at networks, boundaries and thresholds, frequently invisible in the topological structure of an environment. While the work by Michelle Teran, which received the transmediale prize this year, attempts to visualise or 'ground' virtual social networks and content by tracking them down to their physical location in a performance, Maria Vedder explores constructed and imagined boundaries and transitional non-spaces in the environment. Marc Aschenbrenner's and Niklas Goldbach's work visualises an almost apocalyptic landscape with humanoid forms, solitary sculptures or clones, seemingly adjusting to an alienating urban topology.

Human communication and the elusiveness of traces is the focus of Martin Howse's and Tudor Bratu's work. Their work attempts to capture interaction and presence, real or imagined, converting it into an interactive performative experience. Similarly Bengt Sjolén, Adam Somlai Fischer and Matthias Fitz take up the idea of communication but shift the perspective to visualising the invisible fabric digital communication is based upon. The work of boredomresearch also joins the virtual and the material in an installation and proposes an unusual kind of slow communication.

The works of Mader-Stublic-Wiermann, Julius von Bismarck, Marcellvs L., Julian Oliver, Miles Chalcraft, and Dave Ball explore the physical environment, at times in a humorous manner, expanding the structures, inverting them, breaking them, playing with perception, causing minor ruptures to disturb preconceived perspectives, revealing different facets, challenging the mind and the eye.

Stadt am Rande Organisation: Goethe-Institut China, Today Art Museum Cooperation: transmediale, Gallery Art Claims Impulse Sponsors: Hainan Airlines, SAMSUNG Curators: Pierre Wolter, Melanie Zagrean Project Management: Gao Yi (Goethe Institut Beijing) Special Guest: Stephen Kovats (Artistic Director, transmediale)

Special Thanks to: The artists, Gallery Anita Beckers, Gallery Carlier & Gebaur, Gallery DAM, Gallery Olaf Stüber.

Artists: Marc Aschenbrenner, Dave Ball, Julius von Bismarck, Boredomresearch, Tudor Bratu, Miles Chalcraft, Matthias Fitz, Adam Somlai-Fischer & Bengt Sjölen, Andreas Nicolas Fischer & Benjamin Maus, Niklas Goldbach, Martin Howes, Marcellvs L, Mader- Stublic - Wiermann, Julian Oliver, Michelle Teran, Maria Vedder.

Stadt am Rande
Organisation: Goethe-Institut China, Today Art Museum
Kuratoren: Pierre Wolter, Melanie Zagrean

Künstler: Marc Aschenbrenner, Dave Ball, Julius von Bismarck, Boredomresearch, Tudor Bratu, Miles Chalcraft, Matthias Fitz, Adam Somlai-Fischer & Bengt Sjölen, Andreas Nicolas Fischer & Benjamin Maus, Niklas Goldbach, Martin Howes, Marcellvs L , Mader - Stublic - Wiermann, Julian Oliver, Michelle Teran, Maria Vedder.