Matthias Wermke

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Matthias Wermke

Participating Project	Research Residency Program
Activity Based	Germany
Period	2011.9 - 2011.10

Purpose of the residency

"Exploring the unknown in the known, looking beyond architectural, social, gender and political boundaries is a global goal to make this world our world."
As we did in lots of our previous works, we are constantly searching and dealing with the boundaries of public space. Actually we try to ignore, break or redefine them. Since our first trip to Tokyo, we are touched and amazed by the very different approach to urbanity we experienced while discovering the Japanese capital.
Regarding this exploration we are searching for spaces that are not in the focus for the usual inhabitant of a city. It could be anything from right across the handrail of a sidewalk to a hidden location highly difficult to reach. We need a certain time to get used to the city of Tokyo to find these spaces. After finding some "space beyond the public" we are going to investigate these places in detail and try to find a way to catch the special beauty of them. In our previous works we found different ways to come closer to the essence of such places by spending a lot of time there. In or working process we usually build up a strong relationship to this kind of neuter. Catching the light, the sound, the smell, the vibration and even the core of a space is our way to finally find a way of condensing the atmosphere.

Plan during the residency

We plan to use TWS as the starting point for our investigation of public space in Tokyo. We will start our explorations every day from Aoyama. We brought our film equipment and will go around the city by bike and photograph architectural sites and situations that cause our interest. Going to places that we do not know is part of our concept.
We will "drift" around the city and eventually end up in very uncommon locations.
From time to time we will also make some rehearsal shootings at these locations. Later on we will make a list of these locations and develop a shooting plan for them. We will try to come up with a concept for a video work where we use the public space in an uncommon artistic way. Our concept is to investigate the rules and regulations of the public space in Tokyo. We will try to find a way to "ignore" or "go around" these rules and plan to use the public space in our own playful way. It might happen that we get in trouble with the city authorities due to our activities. Please note that we do not plan to harm anybody or to cause any damage. Playing among the city is only possible if we ignore certain rules in order to show an artistic alternative way to use the city and its architecture.
All our activities have artistic reasons as their basic intention!
After the research period we will work on a shooting plan in Berlin. We hope to be able to develop an activity plan for the creator residency in 2012 and to produce a wonderful work during our upcoming creator residency.

Creator Information