Berlin-based media artist Nils Völkermakes oceans of trash. Or, rather, he makes trash bags mimic the ocean—giving life to inanimate plastic so that the pieces replicates the ebb and flow of the tide. His past work, Thirty Three, included 33 plastic bags and an integrated computerizerd fan system attached to Arduino, so information from the tides of a harbor in Northwest France controlled the bags' pulse. Ninety Six, his newest work, isn't as connected to nature, but it's no less mesmerizing to watch.
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The installation incorporates 96 trash bags placed along a wall that swell and exhale in controlled rhyhms, creating wavelike animations. As the artists writes in his project description, "Although each bag is mounted in a staionary position, the sequences of inflation and deflation create the impression of lively movements…In this way shapes and the boundaries of the installation itself start to dissolve."Völker's work reminds us the installation art of Zimoun, who also uses trashable objects as his creative fodder. They give objects that once seemed useles an unexpected spark and energy. Ninety Six is the type of installation that could probably put us in a trance if we gazed at it long enough—not unlike that sensation where you say a word until its meaning disintegrates into something that's at once logicless and sublime: "A bag is a bag is a bag is a bag…"Ninety Six is open through October 19th at the exhibition "Höhenrausch" at the OÖ Kulturquartier in Linz, Austria. See some more photos of the work below:
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