The OPENCOIL exhibition explores the impact of micro-mobility services on urban space by using its decentralised infrastructure as an exhibition space, while also addressing the conditions and effects of this infrastructure.
11 artists were invited to present their work on a small Wifi controller with ~2MB offline memory.
These “digital gallery spaces” are attached to 11 randomly selected e-scooters. Thus the exhibition, unnoticed by the regular users of these scooters, drives through the city as a “roaming speed show”.
From October 26th onwards the current location of the artworks will be displayed here on this website. In order to view the works the corresponding “Scooter Gallery” must be found in the offline urban space.
Once the scooter is rented, visitors will be able to access the 2MB gallery space and the exhibited works via their personal smartphone.
While capacity restrictions and the preferred avoidance of gatherings in closed spaces pose challenges on traditional galleries and museums, OPENCOIL aims to combine the independence of the online with the materiality of the offline (and vice versa). The infrastructure of “micro-mobility services” will be taken over – climate-neutral and decentralised.
The pavements of many cities around the world have been flooded in recent years by so-called ‘dockless sharing vehicles’. With promises of eco-friendliness and electromobility, these risk capitalism activists have occupied the grey zone between private and public space on the streets of our cities. However, this unscrupulous conscientiousness of ‘micro-mobility services’ raises important questions about urban space, ownership, agency, production, ecology and very late capitalism.
How to deal with the occupation of public space? What tools and ways are there to reclaim it?
OPENCOIL is not only meant to be a pandemic-proof way to show art in public offline space. OPENCOIL is also a creative (re)use of e-scooters, an attempt to approach them by artistic means. On show are works that deal with questions of the overlap between public and private space, the use of resources, as well as greenwashing, risk capitalism and vandalism.
The participating artists are:
Aram Bartholl
Constant Dullaart
Dennis de Bel & Anton Jehle
JODI
Jonas Lund
Martin Howse
!Mediengruppe Bitnik
Rosa Menkman
Sarah Grant
Sofya Aleynikova
Danja Vasiliev
Other explanatory notes:
The artistic contributions are each stored on a Wifi microcontroller, which is connected to a scooter and is thus supplied with power as soon as the scooter is rented. To view the works, you connect to the local unencrypted WiFi network sent by the Wifi chip. A web portal opens automatically, where the work can be viewed. No mobile data connection is necessary. All works have been specially optimised by the artists to be viewed on smartphones.
OPENCOIL is in no way associated with the “micro-mobility services”, but only uses the existing scooter network. The conversion of the scooters into an exhibition space is completely reversible after the exhibition ends and in no way restricts the conventional use of the scooters (even during the exhibition). The scooters will not be damaged.
The exhibition will start on October 26th with scooters spread around Berlin. For one week, until November 1st, the exhibition will be serviced and kept running daily by our team. Should a work be damaged or not be found, please send an e-mail (service@opencoil.show) or use the Telegram App (https://t.me/opencoil)