Presentations, Works & Wasteland Twinning Ceremonies: Welcome to The Wasteland Twinning Network Forum 2012. A Retrospective now online. As the inaugural event of the ZK/U, the Wasteland Twinning Network Forum made use of of the clean slate offered by the venues exposed architecture. The main hall was approached as a seminar arena and gallery space that was utilised to host presentations, discussions artworks. It also featured the Objective Dialogues table which was ... more »
Will Foster and Alex Head from Wasteland Twinning Network Berlin will present at ‘Urban Ecologies and its practices’ Conference that summarises the programme of the Museum of Art in Lodz URBAN ECOLOGIES.
An exploration of urban wastelands and networked transdisciplinary practice The Forum brings together the international project partners of the Wasteland Twinning Network from Europe, Asia and Australia.
Hosted at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik, the Forum features presentations, guest speakers, critical debates, Twinning Ceremonies, wasteland interventions and workshops.
Visit Forum website at http://wasteland-twinning.net/forum
Documentation from The Fallow Games on the Köpi Brache in Berlin, Germany and The Nottingham Rounders Club, The Island in Nottingham, England.
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 ... more »
Tune in your internet this saturday 30th of June 2012 Starting 2pm local time Germany - 1pm local time England Radio commentary coming to you live and at the same time from the games in Nottingham and Berlin. More info http://wasteland-twinning.net/games-broadcast/
WASTE, SPORT and HABIT come together for THE FALLOW GAMES The Wasteland Twinning Network hosts a day of urban sporting and appropriation of the city’s wastelands. You are invited into our temporary playground where everyday activities will be transformed into challenges and games. Gain points as you tackle the terrain and hunt in the shrubs. The starting point is south end Schillingbrücke, Kreuzberg. Participants can turn up at any point ... more »
As a way to present Wasteland Twinning I organised an afternoon workshop with students from Lawrence Technological University, Detroit, under the benevolent eye of their tutor Steve Coy. We bumped into Steve and Dorthe Coy on the Köpi Brache a few weeks ago and discussed giving a short presentation of the project and coming Fallow Games. Students were encouraged to bring broken objects, machines and discarded materials from the city to ... more »
Ferdiansyah Thajib from Yogyakarta is in Berlin, what better opportunity to test out the freshly made commentators’ stand in preparation for the Fallow Games. It was the first time Ferdiansyah had seen the Köpi Brache site, we carried the stand around like a royal sedan, setting it down in different places to get an overview. The stand seems like it could function beyond the games event, proving to be suited tool for discussion and observation of the site. Although the flags are far from discreet if wanting to ... more »
On the 2nd June the Cuvry Brache space was used to host a day of active solidarity between the various users of the site in protest against its development and rent increases in the area. The forthcoming development also threatens to close one of the few remaining public access points to the river Spree, the Köpenicker site being one of only a handful left. Community groups presented their concerns and ... more »
A series of experiments using long distance communication. Questions and answers have been flying across the river Spree and through Skype with project partners The Islanders in Nottingham. Semaphore flags made from Heris fencing were provided for wasteland users with examples of semaphore code while we took up position on the opposite bank to conduct ad hoc interviews. Interviewees included a small family who were ‘Suchen für schatz’, ‘on a ... more »
Using a structured conversation I interviewed two young women on the wasteland who grew up in the local area. We discuss the potential development of the site as being symbolic of wider changes in the city. Their view of the city’s future is characterised by a concern with what seem like the inevitable increases in overall costs and population at the expense of Berlin’s indigenous poor. Artists and their projects ... more »
I have been making more tools of the trade, my approach at the moment is to simply adapt found objects on the wasteland and leave them for people to use. In some cases I am playing with an already existing function; for example people have already used several Heras fences to climb the wall into the ice factory. I took one of the Heras fences and adapted it into a more conventional and sturdy ladder shape. I’m curious to ... more »
As the Islanders (Nottingham Collective) move towards planning the Wasteland Games to take place in the Summer http://wasteland-twinning.net/blog/trading-camouflage-for-camouflage/, I thought I would post some images of a game of Golf that took place on a cold winters day on the Köpi (Berlin) wasteland between Amsterdam and Berlin representatives of the WT network. This game of Golf was a prime time to ‘talk business’ and a try a new approach to navigating the terrain. We ... more »
” He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging. He must not be afraid to return again and again to the same matter; to scatter it as one scatters earth, to turn it over as one turns over soil. For the matter itself is only a deposit, a stratum, which yields only to the most meticulous examination what constitutes the real treasure ... more »
Foreword: Leslie Fairisle arrived on the Köpenickerstr 36 Wasteland site in the middle of January. I first noticed him loitering about the edge of the river on a particularly chilly Sunday morning. As you will note from the following extracts taken from Fairisle’s journal he claims to have been undertaking an investigation for a party interested in acquiring the land. He refers to his employers only as The Company, presumably ... more »
The Round Table Club was established in 1927 as a means for male British professionals and businessmen to network and share opportunities. Their motto of ‘adopt, adapt and improve’ is a direct quote from the then Prince of Wales, Edward VIII in his address to the British Industries Fair, 1927, in which he urged industry leaders to work together for the greater good of Britain. The central dart-board iconography of ... more »
Designs for tools and functional objects made from found materials on the wastelands. Heras Fencing objects: Spades:
Selected documentation of peoples activities on the Köpi wasteland, Berlin throughout 2011.
Nottsterdam Sydyakarta Guwhaburg Glaslumpur Stocklin
Down in the distance by the river there is this man. He has been pacing back and forth for the past hour, throwing his body around in erratic turbulent motions. I’m assuming he’s drunk or on something. He looks out of place, out of it and out of here, his movements are distressed. He’s holding a drink; I assume it’s alcoholic. Although inebriated and outstanding his display is composed; it ... more »
Images by Lars Hayer
Objects found on the Island and the Köpi Brache Documented By Will Foster and Rebecca Beinart. November 2011 The exclamation “Snap!” is occasionally used in conversation and has a similar meaning to “Me too!”, denoting a similar experience being had between two parties. ‘Snap AKA Egyptian Ratscrew (commonly known by Egyptian War, Egyptian Rat War, ERS, Egyptian Rat Slap, Slaps, Acid, and many other names) is acard game of the matching family of games, reminiscent of Slapjack and Beggar-My-Neighbour)’
In a last attempt to capture the end of the summer before autumn settles in, I decided to film some footage of the wasteland. At the same time I am playing with different formats, as each will undoubtedly bring with it a different kind of representation.
This is a preview of a work in progress which Lars and myself have been documenting the wasteland site using a static microphone and camera. On the 3rd of September we documented the site from six corresponding points. We are interested in generating visually and sonically heightened representation of the wasteland. The recording devices feature in the background of the frame; in the photograph the microphone can be seen and ... more »
Further field recordings conducted today in the Berlin wasteland.
Today we made several more field recordings of the wasteland site, now working with better equipment it was possible to pick up an abundance of noise. This is a clip from a recording made down by the waterfront. A particular moment when a tour boat passed through the water, changing the rhythm of the lapping water along side the muffled words of the tour guide. Field recording-Passing boat day time-Berlin by wastelandtwinning
Audio recording 1 – Walking the site
Duration 07’40″
‘We say the map is different from the territory. But what is the territory? Operationally, somebody went out with a retina or a measuring stick and made representations which were then put on paper. What is on the paper map is a representation of what was in the retinal representation of the man who made the map; and as you push the question back, what you find is an infinite ... more »
Litter picker made from found materials on the wasteland.
Going further into mapping the wasteland I thought I would look at Google Maps, Google Earth, Bing etc to see if there are any diferences between how the space has been mapped documented. In Google earth I was surprised to find a large gry structure in the middle of the wasteland approximately 30 m² and 6 metres high. What is this? How long has it been there? Who put it there?
After yet another day of witnessing the wasteland being used for a multiplicity of activities; a set for a film, a BBQ place, a vegetable garden, a thoroughfare (to name but a few). I set myself the simple task of drawing a map, crude and quick, a simple way to attempt to gather some overview on the innumerable layers and narratives of this of this place. This lead me to thinking about ‘For Space’ by geographer and ... more »
Built 4th – 5th June 2011 Adapted 11th – 12th June 2011
Spring time in Berlin, and the wasteland is busy. Today I encountered many people walking their dogs and sitting by the river Spree. At one point I approached two men, one of which was holding a spade. I presumed they where gardening as they stood on the garden plot which has just recently been dug over in preparation for growing. In fact they where testing out a metal detector. They had dug a hole and placed a necklace inside it. I attempted to hold a ... more »
Late this afternoon I made a flag from found objects and erected it at the highest point of the wasteland. This quick territorial intervention relates to a past project ‘Duplex‘ where I introduced an arts community to the urban wasteland in Glasgow by providing visitors with a chance to explore the land’s particularities, ecology, users, and future potential. An aspect of this project was making temporary signage and interpretation tools from found ... more »
The sites neighbourhood beeing partly under construction, a freshly white painted wall is now gaining attraction among the wasteland’s borders.