ECHORAUM is a series of two-year co-operations between the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany and a number of international Media Colleges. Students and graduates of the media colleges present their current projects in the lower ground floor galleries which become a temporary experimental laboratory.

On 14 July 2010 at 7:00 pm, parallel to the opening of the Thomas Schütte exhibition, the exhibition Small Things opens at the Art and Exhibition Hall. It is the second exhibition in the series of co-operations with the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and -1/ Minus Eins and presents current media art.

-1/ Minus Eins, the experimental media lab of the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne, grew out of the academy’s holography lab under the aegis of professor Mischa Kuball. Conceived as an interdisciplinary workshop, a place of communication and teaching as well as the centre of a network within the academy, the lab is intended to help students realise their projects. And it is with this in mind that it enters into co-operations and exchanges with a wide range of non-university partners in Cologne and further afield.

The works shown in the exhibition Small Things fall into three principal categories:

• Works that address the Art and Exhibition Hall and its space,


• works that focus on personal, autobiographical motifs,


• works that address the perception or nature of media art.

Thus Ralf Witthaus’s lawnmower drawing on the roof of the Art and Exhibition Hall raises questions about the relationship between quality and visitor numbers. Carolina Redondo’s Self Mountain Training for a Substructure and Allan Gretzki’s Barcode, which simply spells ‘Allan Gretzki’ lay claim to the space provided by the Art and Exhibition Hall. The works by Daniela Risch and Roshanak Zangeneh scrutinise political symbols and events such as the changing meaning of the kaffiyeh (Palestinian scarf) or the reunification of Germany from the artists’ highly personal perspective. Ira Decker, Lukas Marxt, Kiseong Kim and Timo Seber, whose works not only investigate the concept of sculpture and material but also the perception of the viewer, demonstrate the enormous range and breadth of contemporary media art.

Ira Decker, born in 1979 in Kurdaj, Kazakhstan
„Untitled“, 2009, Lenticular image in light box

Lenticular images, which change with the viewing angle, allow viewers to catch ever shifting glimpses of the exhibition space and to slowly piece together a coherent whole.

Allan Gretzki, born in 1979 in Siegburg
„Barcode“, 2010, Black tape

This site-specific piece was conceived for the stairwell of the Art and Exhibition Hall. Forming a seemingly abstract pattern, the black stripes encode the artist’s name in linear barcode. The name is thus transformed into an international symbol, the work becomes a product and the barcode art.

Kiseong Kim, born in 1979 in Cheongju, South Korea
„Article No.: 110343138847/ 310109974500/ 320325955049“, 2010, Encyclopaedias, packing material, fluorescent tube

The artist’s works consists of perforated second-hand encyclopaedias, into which he inserts neon tubes before packaging the ensemble in such a way that the light appears to part of the packing material.
Encyclopaedias, once regarded as indispensable bastions of knowledge, are gradually superseded by the wealth of information offered by the Internet and increasingly published as software only. The acquisition of knowledge and information has changed fundamentally. Kim’s work thematises these changes and anachronisms.

Lukas Marxt, born in 1983 in Fucking, Austria
„Black Beauty“, 2010, Video installation, loop

Lukas Marxt projects a self-erasing image of a ring cloud ring into a geometric body. During the projection the black spaces between frames bring about a transformation of form and structure; the edges of the image fade away and the internal space of the sculpture dissolves into nothingness.

Carolina Redondo, born in 1977 in Santiago de Chile
„Self Mountain Training for a Substructure“, 2010
Video performance installation

This performance piece was conceived for the Art and Exhibition Hall and shows the physical appropriation of the space by the artist. An apparatus installed along the edges of the room allows the artist to gauge the dimensions of the narrow space and to redefine it critically and individually by positioning and repositioning her body. A video documents this process.

Daniela Risch, born in 1969 in Dahme/Brandenburg
„here, here and here“, 2010, Three loops in digital picture frames

Daniela Risch’s camera traces the routes of her everyday life in the Ruhr. Interspersed family photographs grant the viewer a glimpse of the artist’s recurring memories: Roads and paths of her childhood in a different era, thirty-five years ago in East Berlin.

Timo Seber, born in 1984 in Cologne
„Donnerwetter – tadellos!“, 2010, paper, wood, hinges

The elegant salon of François Haby, barber to Emperor Wilhelm II in Berlin, created a sensation when it reopened after refurbishment by Henry van de Velde in 1901. Not only did the celebrated Belgian architect install green washbasins, dark red mahogany veneers and a purple frieze, he also made the brass water and gas pipes an integral part of his design. Parts of the original furnishings have survived, among them one of originally twelve barber’s stations. Timo Seber has incised a life-size tracing of it on paper and stretched it on canvases. Mimicking the original in the manner of a stage backdrop, the work is now displayed at the Art and Exhibition Hall.

Ralf Witthaus, born in 1973 in Bad Oeynhausen
„Qualitätsnachweis“ (Proof of Quality), 2010, lawnmower drawing
Ralf Witthaus visualises the daily attendance figures of the Art and Exhibition Hall by mowing them into the lawn on the roof garden. The work is a comment on the statistical entry of quantities and on the question of the quantifiability of quality.

Roshanak Zangeneh, born in Teheran
“Contextures“, 2009, Eight photographs, mini disc player

The eight photographs featuring people wearing a kaffiyeh (Palestinian scarf) illustrate the loss of symbolic power of the traditional head covering. Perceived as a political statement of the Left in the late 1960s, it is now primarily worn as a trendy fashion accessory. Out of sixty people who attended a casting nine were willing to be photographed and to engage in a conversation about the kaffiyeh and their motivation for wearing it.