Exploring submerged territory
Using a dredging device made from our beloved Heris fencing, builders mesh and scrapped tire chains, this initial experiment attempted to carry out small scale excavations of material from the bed of the river Spree.
Predictions: Will Foster predicted that the device would get stuck while I really wanted to pull up a red children's bicycle.
The Spree riverbed was littered with glass and other deterrents to those contemplating an escape from former East Germany. And though the wasteland on Kopenicker Str would have fallen within the DDR zone making attempts at this section of the river unlikely, it seemed fitting to have recovered what appear to be two generations of barbed wire. The older of the two is a simple weave of two wires with sharpened sections threaded across to form jagged spikes. This type of barbed wire can also be found further up the bank behind the regularly unpicked and repaired fencing.
What might be the more recent variety of fencing due to the lack of mollusc formations is similar to that which lines parts of the site today. The Dreissena polymorpha or Zebra mussel, an invasive species carried by international shipping, has a life span of 4-5 years placing the fencing's submersion around 2006/07, if these specimens are fully developed. However the absence of mussels on the razor wire might also be the result of using an alloy to produce the fencing.
