I am collaborating with Mikala Hyldig-Dal and Sharon Paz to organize an exhibition and public program at >top Transdisciplinary Project Space, titled space-dot-com, during 48 Hours Neukölln from 19th to 21st of June, 2020.
Sketch for the installation
space-dot-com is a combined spatial exhibition and augmented reality installation by artists Sharon Paz and Mikala Hyldig-Dal, curated by Tuçe Erel, which addresses conceptions of ownership in urban space, focusing the rapid boom of gentrification in Neukölln. Exhibition will take place at >top Transdisciplinary Project Space between June 19th to 21st, with invited guests from Syndikat and Kunstblok as well researcher and social architects Yelta Köm, Katharina Moebus, and Melissa Harrison. The exhibition will expand into the public space surrounding the gallery; conducting a performative guided tour with visitors, to nearby places that speak to different perspectives on the topic relating to site-specific research in the Neukölln/Schillerkiez area. OUT-OF-SPACE will bring the community into a dialogue, to discuss the possibility to reject the active process of gentrification, happening globally today in various big cities.
The project is a response to the rapid boom of gentrification in the Neukölln. The worldwide process of the wealth that is unevenly distributed, transforms and push out residents to peripheral areas of the city or into homelessness. space-dot-com questions the idea of ownership and exploitation/solidarity to abstract relations to outer space, interstellar colonialism, dark matter, and black holes. The project explores the possibility of rethink redistribution policies and profoundly restructure power relations on a global scale. Platform capitalism in the form of e.g. Airbnb and Facebook offer “services” that jeopardize existing urban and social structures while largely avoiding paying taxes.
The installation is shaped like an apartment, which will be built out of simple cardboard and include both video projections and a 360-degree augmented reality to creates a fusion between real space and virtual elements. Avatars that embody “the politics of space” in a form of absurd play on inner and outer space as ultimate philosophical categories. As part of the interactive concept, the temporary space of the fictional apartment is rented out over Airbnb where tenants for a symbolic sum – equalling the amount the German welfare system Hartz4 provides – can become temporary owners, co-constructors as well as use the box apartment for temporal accommodation.
Tuçe Erel 