+ artnoise
Meinstein is a interarctive public artwork in Neukoelln, a borrough of Berlin which is characterized by a high number of immigrants. The project consisting of an interactive and participatory part, code art and landscaping architecture was realised by an artistic team and el:ch landscaping architects (Berlin, Munich).For the participatory part, I worked with the citizens of Neukoelln on the matter of immigration and everyday-life. The colourful stones that form the pavement are imported from the regions where the inhabitants of Neukoelln come from. One stone per citizen of North-Neukoelln. In different workshops I collected soft data about the community life of the heterogenous district. I asked the participants questions like how they feel related to each other, what do they like about the city and its people, where would they prefer to live if they could choose, where do they move in Neukoelln etc.
A computer software was developed in order to translate the people’s answers and personal drawings in relation to the numbers and the colours of stones. The soft empirical data had to be translated in numerical values to become the input for a software that simulated a dynamic pattern based on the cohesion the different stones. The answers of the citizens influenced the virtual agents whether they had to make smaller or wider steps in the computer simulation. By this way the inhabitants influenced indirectly the entire design of the the whole square without being aware of it. It was a kind of metaphor for the community life within an ethnically mixed urban place. The inhabitants give a shape to the borrough but they can neither control this process, nor can they describe it.
The conceptual part of this work is about memory and the notion of home and origin. Home considered in a wider meaning: childhood, language, the beloved people, the earth, etc. What does it mean to bring a piece of your past and integrate it in a new environment. The imported stones are symbols for a piece of home and migration.
Nadia Kaabi-Linke
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