A \u201cprototype\u201d in the \u201cCare and Repair\u201d project, Vienna Biennale, 2017<\/p>\n
The \u201cNature\/ Culture Calling \u201c project is installed in Nordbahnhof, Vienna. It constitutes a \u201cprototype\u201d among five other, in the \u201cCare+ Repair\u201d project, which is part of the Vienna Biennale 2017. Angelika Fitz and Elke Krasny, curate the project. Their attempt is to shape alternatives on the question of the future inhabitation of the old Nordbahnhof area, nearby Danube. A development of high-rise housing in the area will shape an urban field in-between the buildings, as a \u201cfree middle\u201d, keeping the qualities of urban and natural wilderness. How to understand this urban field and what kind of social practices can be shaped there?
\nDealing with the potential of human to animal relations as a background of social practices, the \u201cNature\/ Culture Calling \u201c project is bringing together birds and humans in a symbiotic shared situation. The \u201cnature\/culture\u201d symbiosis is rather social than physical. Birds singing is historically used as a metaphor for humans singing and poetry. In Aristophanes comedy the birds world is an heterotopia where humans may reconsider their political affairs. Can the \u201cfree middle\u201d in Nordbahnhof be seen as such a heterotopia?
\n\u201cNature\/ Culture Calling \u201c is a \u201cprototype\u201d installation. It transforms the abandoned electrical pylons of the old station to bird nests on the top and sitting places on the ground. The third dimension measures the distance of the earth and the sky. Sound of singing -humans -as -birds is performed and installed in the area. A sound territory is formed to include humans and birds in a common field of lingual performativity and a program of human interaction. The \u201cchorus\u201d is a good, old example for such an interaction. Gathering and social performativity in the common field is the desired outcome of the \u201cNature \/Culture\u201d call for the urban future. <\/p>\n
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Zissis Kotionis and Phoebe Giannisi. Collaboration: Martin Riesing <\/p>\n