Richard Kriesche is, among other things, a media artist and theoretician, whose works include computer art, Internet art and multimedia art. Recent works have included “Ästhetik des Kapitals”, “capital and code” and “blood and tears”. UNTERNEHMENSÄSTHETIK # 5, his latest work, was done in collaboration with the leading Austrian logistics company Knapp, at their headquarter in Hart bei Graz.
All this media theory and intralogistics leads me secretly to expect a presentation that might possibly be interesting, but almost certainly very, very dry; a surprise and relief, then, that the installation turns out to be captivating and shot through with playfulness, especially when shown to us by the lively and genial Richard Kriesche.
The installation consists of five main sections, whose variety of size and style allows Kriesche to showcase his diversity also in terms of the many disciplines he bridges. He works with different scales and bridges them in a witty, challenging way. The different elements of the installation stand alone yet are also subtly interdependent, a bit like the network that forms the basis of Knapp’s business, logistics.
Within the installation itself, this diversity has a cumulative, rather than disparate effect, interweaving layers of inquiry and exposure. Kriesche’s response as a media artist to the high-tech is not alienation and it’s not infatuation, yet neither is it neutral: his work acts at the interface of the human and the logistic, and of art and industry, where he makes two systems rub together and create their own vibrant energy.
We begin with a diary of the company’s founder, invented by Kriesche. Handwritten ‘excerpts’ and scribbled designs cover the windows of the lobby in silvery grey. Binding the company firmly to the persona of its founder and creator, it charts the successes of the remarkable Günter Knapp. One sketch shows his first invention: an automatic ‘Krapfenfüller’ machine that injects jam into the middle of doughnuts. A further series of window transfers follows the company’s continuing accomplishments under new management and its development into the field of intralogistics.
The third part of the installation is in front of the building. At the top of a high post at the main entrance, Kriesche swivels round the yellow triangle logo of Knapp, making it into an arrow pointing not towards the company headquarters but away from it, off into ‘Hart Valley’ as he calls the slightly eerie landscape surrounding Knapp. Is this perhaps an arrow pointing to the question, Where are we – some strange hybrid of rurality and industry? It’s a minimal, humorous change that still manages to create confusion and irritation in visitors and employees too.
Back inside we look at some large-format pictures: at first glance apparently just abstract geometric patterns. On closer inspection one realises that they are made up of enlarged data matrix squares—two-dimensional matrix barcodes consisting of dark and light modules in a square, whose information can be read with a scanner. Richard Kriesche found these in the research department at Knapp and uses them here as images that work independently, with their own aesthetic. Encoded and decodable, they literally contain hidden meaning and the potential for transformation. It is a visual, provocative representation of the notion of art as code and code as art, a theme that runs throughout Kriesche’s body of work.
We are then taken into a round chamber, which turns out to be a cinema. A vast production line and its noises accumulate around us, with a spooky, almost overwhelming effect; screens slide and shift, the focus changing from one side of the circle to another. It is once again different from the other parts of the installation, an encompassing experience that reminds one of the performative aspects of Richard Kriesche’s previous works, and his dramatic versatility. Yet it also has the same fundamental sense of transparency and simplicity that runs as a thread throughout the installation, and that this is another chapter in the overall narrative.
The final part of the work is interactive: a data matrix code scanner. Something like a camera hangs down on a rod from the ceiling and can be swivelled to face different parts of a picture composed of data matrix blocks. A TV screen to one side then displays the decoded messages. We take turns in having a go. It’s a simple device that demystifies both the code and the process, straightforward enough for anyone to use. Pointing to a transparency of both the process and the company, it turns out that these technical-age hieroglyphs amount to slogans in English of startling simplicity: “Working with all our customers all over the world”, “We develop customised integrated solutions”, “Knapp: the logistics provider for the food service industry,” and so on. “Like a giant Advent calendar,” someone says, and everyone including Richard Kriesche laughs. This convivial and stimulating atmosphere continues until we visitors gradually head out into the night again, into the strange no-man’s-land of Hart Valley.
ZUR INFORMATION:
Headquarter KNAPP AG, Hart bei Graz
Bauherr: Knapp AG
Entwurfsplanung: Architekturbüro DI Friedrich Wiesenhofer (Graz), 2007
Generalplanung: EICHHOLZER & WALLUSCHEK ZT-GMBH, 2008
Bauzeit: 2008/2009
Nutzfläche: 8400 m2
KONTAKT:
KNAPP AG
Günter-Knapp-Strasse 5-7
8075 Hart bei Graz
T +43 (0)316/495 0
F +43 (0)316/491 395
