transmediale 2010

The space station, as an extreme example for the utopian city and efficient habitable structures, is an integral part of the past century's vision of the future. This future has arrived, and the dream of the inhabited cities in outer space will remain unfulfilled for a long time to come.

The space station, as an extreme example of the utopian city and efficient habitable structures, is an integral part of the past century’s vision of the future. This future has arrived, and the dream of inhabited cities in outer space will re-main unfulfilled for a long time to come. For transmediale.10, raumlaborberlin occupies the foyer of the House of World Cultures with a research-station called the Futures Exchange. Special modules serve as workshops and communication areas designed for the occupancy of artists and visitors. As primary building materials, the doors of East German panel flats which had to yield to wrecking balls have been salvaged and re-appropriated for use. Originating from Halle-Neustadt they are a symbol for the shrinking and deconstruction of this town, which was conceived in the early 1960’s as part of a utopian vision for the post-war modernist city. The doors, representing waste and the failure of the 20th Century’s ideological struggles, now find new life as transmediale.10’s temporary space station for process-based artistic practice.

Festival architecture by raumlaborberlin: Francesco Apuzzo, Andrea Hofmann, Christof Mayer, Axel Timm