Temporäres Flusslabor / Temporary River Laboratory

Rolf Hinterecker

temporary river laboratory

The river laboratory as a homage to the Danube stands as a metaphor for the field of tension between the environment / nature and our civilisation with its culture of science. It was a temporary station floating on pontoons anchored in the Hüttinger Altarm. A film sluice allows boats (barges / canoes ) to pass through the middle of the object.

A water basin containing micro-organisms, water plants, small fish, etc. from the regional biotope of the Danube rises over the observer. The laboratory thus gives a tiny impression of life below the surface of this river; a sort of symbolic flood that visitors can view from below.

A solar-powered pump brings eutrophic fresh river water into the basin to guarantee a constant water quality. Filters prevent any unplanned contamination with river spirits. The division of the water within the basin is controlled by glass cross compartments, which also prevent a one-sided emptying of the basin in the event of waves.

Safety glass ensures a view of the side cabins within the sluice, and protects the visitors from the selected, genetically manipulated cultures of river spirits, elves and gnomes that brood in the 'Laboratory installations'.

These river inhabitants, that are only active at night, voluntarily participate in the series of tests, but decline any visualisation.

Temporäres Flusslabor

Das Flusslabor als homage an die Donau steht als Metapher des Spannungsfeldes Environment / Natur und unserer Zivilisation mit ihrer Wissenschaftskultur. Es handelte sich um eine temporäre Station, die auf Pontons schwimmend, im Hüttinger Altarm verankert ist. Durch eine Folienschleuse kann das Objekt in der Mitte, mit Booten ( Zillen / Kanus ) durchfahren werden.

Über dem Betrachter erhebt sich vollflächig ein Wasserbecken, in dem sich Mikroorganismen, Wasserpflanzen, kleine Fische usw. aus dem regionalen Biotop der Donau befinden. Das Labor gibt somit einen winzigen Einblick in das Leben unter der Oberfläche dieses Flusses; eine Art symbolisches Hochwasser das die Besucher von unten betrachten können.

Eine solargetriebene Pumpe fördert eutrophes frisches Flusswasser in das Becken, um eine konstante Wasser-güteklasse zu gewährleisten. Filter unterbinden eine unplanmäßige Kontami-nierung mit Flussgeistern. Die Verteilung des Wassers in den Becken wird durch gläserne Querfächer geregelt, die bei Wellengang auch eine einseitige Entleerung verhindern.

Eine Einsicht in die Seitenkabinen wird innerhalb der Schleuse durch Sicherheitsglas gewährleistet, das die Besucher vor den selektierten, genetisch veränderten Kulturen von Flussgeistern, Elfen und Gnomen die in den 'Laboraufbauten' brüten, schützt.

Diese nachtaktiven Flussbewohner beteiligen sich freiwillig an den Testreihen, stehen aber einer Visualisierung ablehnend gegenüber.

Temporary River Laboratory

Rolf Hinterecker has long been interested in the interface between science and poetry, nature and culture. It marks the centre of his artistic research, symbolising an inquisitive, experimental perspective on life with an uncertain future.

All of these factors also define his temporary river laboratory, anchored in the middle of a branch of the Danube. This steel and glass construction has been built on two pontoons and the larger cube is covered on the outside by a netlike, transparent wrapping. This makes it closed yet transparent, makes it appear solid and at the same time surprisingly light. Viewed from a distance, the river bank, his work of art looks like some part of an unknown building that has been washed away by a flood. It is a place that exudes a rare sort of magic, that gives rise to questions and fantasies, where the nature inevitably comes into contact with modern (scientific) culture. In the true sense of traditional Land-Art, Hinterecker “uses” the beauty and unique energy potential of nature not only as a decorative backdrop for a sculptural production, rather the landscape and nature themselves become part of his art in their entire complexity.

Anyone who wants to know more has to take a boat out to the work of art, just like explorers of yore setting sail for unknown islands. You can paddle through the sculpture in a canoe. You can move around it. And you can peer inside through glass viewing windows: onto an arrangement of various laboratory instruments, shelves full of examination materials (for example findings out of the river and the nearby surroundings), electron-microscope pictures of plankton and various plant cultures prepared by the artist that should develop over the months. Objects that actually serve a purpose and fantasy objects are inseparably entwined in this laboratory. This is in agreement with the fact that apart from the poetic-dreamlike dimension, actual work is being carried out with the laboratory. Pupils from two project groups will monitor the processes of change, record water level and temperature measurements and any unusual growth of the plants.

A combination with social projects has in the meantime become a fixed part of the majority of Hinterecker’s artistic work. His art wishes to provide a link between basic social and ecological living conditions and demonstrate that the one is inseparably related to the other. The other aspect is the locating of his art in nature.

This work of art will be left to its own devices for five months and develop its full potential over this period. It will change, rust, become overgrown, animals will take up house like in a shipwreck stranded near the river bank. And it is precisely this open growth process that gives the work of art a very special drama and beauty.

For a long time now, Hinterecker has not necessarily been producing completed works of art, but staging artistic processes. His art attempts to show the endless connection between morbidity and growth, destruction and construction, life and death, that has formed the basis of all existence since time immemorial. And these works of art come closest to this if they themselves melt into this process and become part of it.

This in turn brings us full circle to the latest scientific research in the fields of biology and chemistry, that in turn do nothing else and thus give nature a (new) twist. Hinterecker’s fascination for contemporary scientific laboratories is just as great as his respect for the enormous, obscure relationships in nature. So that his outlook on things is one that modern culture is still to a large extent wary of picking out as a central theme.

Jürgen Kisters, June 2003