more tubes on display

Pneumatic tubes create not only wonderful museum exhibits, but also gallery installations too. The network of pipes have inspired artists such as: Yvonne lee Schultz, whose installation Thoughts was installed in the European Patent Office in 2004 (there are many fantastic pneumatic tube related patents in archives, in offices and online!); Serge Spitzer's Re/Search: Bread and Butter and the ever present Question of How to define the difference between a Baguette and a Croissant (II), which was shown at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, in 2010; and most recently, PNEUMAtic circUS's Octo, on display at the transmediale festival for art and digital culture, in Berlin in 2013.

Image of Serge Spitzer's installation at Palais de Tokyo.

pneumatic circus

I have covered various artistic interpretations of pneumatic tubing systems before on this blog, as well as museum displays for children, but I have just been told about one of the most imaginative, interactive and creative pneumatic tube artistic installations yet: PNEUMAtic circUS.

PNEUMAtic circUS was a networked postal art project curated by Vittore Baroni, music critic, "explorer of countercultures", and avid activist for mail art, in collaboration with Tatiana Bazzichelli (sociologist of communication with interest in hactivism), Jonas Frankki (designer responsible for Berlin collective Telekommunisten) and Mauro Guazzotti (leader of experimental noise/industrial band). It was held as part of the transmediale festival for art and digital culture, from January to February 2013 in the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin.

The project involved one hundred mail artists sending in pneumatic post capsules with instructions and scores to be used by the festival visitors for actions and performances.

Artists came from sixteen countries. That is twice as many countries as arms of an octopus, the mascot for the project, also fabulously called P7C-1 Intertubular Octosocial Pneumatical Postal Network, with its tentacles of tubing spreading across the installation space.

You can find the gorgeous catalogue from the installation here (front cover below), with essays from the curators and many images too. The digital catalogue was unveiled recently in Viareggio, the launch marked by further pneumatic performances, with a workshop where attendees could create and transmit their own messages.

See also the Telekommunisten.net website for more about the exhibition and a terrific "inside the OCTO" video.

Images used with permission from the PNEUMAtic circUS Flikr page.