Platonic invasion

"Metareflektor Luftoffensive stages and performs the re-conquest of an ecosystem that has already been extensively over-researched: the museum as the space of art. Here the museum is explored with the same means used by researchers looking at the ecosystem of the rainforest. The air offensive proceeds from the top down, cautiously, without setting foot on the ground, so as to minimize intervention with the system under observation. The expedition begins with a helicopter lifting the research station to the roof of Kunsthalle Recklinghausen. The station will serve as a base from which we will penetrate from the roof down into the museum, using ropes and climbing gear to install a system of suspended platforms and walkways. Our route thus runs counter to the itineraries taken by museum visitors, who enter the building from the ground and then move upwards. Visitors will have no physical access to our construction. We are the exclusive users of the research station, which becomes a kind of myth in the visitors’ minds. The performance also seeks to incorporate the museum collection and uses its artworks as raw material. Our plans prompted the museum directors to select an iconic sample of works from the collection to be displayed for the duration of the performance. The pictures are hung according to aesthetic rather than art-historical criteria. On the ground floor we will present a video and photos documenting parts of the performance. Documentation by video and photos will continue with new material added as evidence of our sporadic visits to the station. By visiting and using the station we will alter the appearance of the installation—which remains unfinished, not complete. All individual performances are entirely random and will not be announced in advance."

Metareflektor Luftoffensive (2006)
by Heike Mutter & Ulrich Genth
http://www.phaenomedia.org/