Torstrasse 166 is an artists’ space in Berlin. One artist’s work which really stood out to me was that of Chiharu Shiota, displayed above and below. Here is a rushed translation of some text from her part of the website:

Chiharu Shiota (b. 1972, Osaka) studied with Marina Abramovic and Rebecca Horn and has lived in Berlin since 1999. Her work has been shown in important exhibitions, museums and film festivals across the world, including the Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, National Museum of Modern Art Tokio [sic?], P.S.1/MoMA New York and the biannual film festivals in Kwangyu, Yokohama, Lyon and Fukuoka. In 2008 she was awarded with the most prestigious Prize of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan.

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The power and energy of Chiharu Shiota’s installations fascinate and unsettle simultaneously. Fears and nightmares are packed into her works. Indeed it is the poetry, the aesthetic allure of her work which captivates the observer.

In earlier installations, Shiota encased herself in black wool, like a cocoon. She slept in exhibitions, trapped in her webs of wool which form an impenetrable bush between a bed and the walls.

Brandon Shigeta, on the other hand, had a new exhibition in February entitled Skate & Destroy, which showcased objects made from old skateboard decks. Here you can view a full flickr album of photos of the event:

And Scott Burnham has some interesting ideas on the role of urban art and the need for it:

If we were to consider the dialogue of design in the same way we do the linguistic development of a culture’s language, then just as informal street-level vernacular has innovated and filled in the gaps of a culture’s formal language, the street has as well developed its own vernacular to fill the gaps in the city’s formal design. This new street-level language of design – non-commissioned, non-invited interventions in the urban landscape – transforms the fixed landscape of the city into a platform for a design dialogue.

Ideas supported by photos of works of urban art which, as Burnham puts it, “are more than simply creative play in the streets – they signal a new aesthetic correspondence between the individual and the physical city”:

In descending order: work by Roadsworth (Montreal), Gualicho (San Jose), TR853-1 (Singapore).

The computer performs a frequency analysis of the sound spectrum, aided by Ablinger himself, which is then fed into the piano player and out comes the child’s voice.

(Video in German with English subtitles)

While I wouldn’t have much hope for people trying to work out what the piano is “saying” without the aid of seeing the words as they’re heard, I think it’s a pretty interesting experiment. The auto-player in itself is something to be marvelled at. Neat!

Wie finden Sie das? Haben sie den Nagel auf den Kopf getroffen oder haben sie nur eine krasse, opportunistische Werbung gemacht?