Dialogue box 1

What is your first association with drag & drop, our theme this year?

Philipp: “The first thing I think of is that little computer hand with the Mickey Mouse glove and that plop sound when you drop a file into a folder.”

How else does your work differ from your work here in Chemnitz?

Philipp:“My practice has a lot to do with text; I write. At PARA, we all do a bit of everything, getting a feel for the area, which is what I usually mainly do.

My work here is not that different – I’ve read all sorts of things to do with smoke – I’ve read about whaling, the production of whale oil as an illuminant, books about London at the time of industrialisation, because I’m trying to get a feel for what it was like to live in a classic working-class neighbourhood like Sonnenberg when it was so heavily smoky. To open up this idea, through texts and images, is a typical approach for me. This morning, for example, I read a text by Heinrich Böll about the Ruhr area, one of Germany’s industrial centres. I read a lot about the coal phase-out, everything that falls under the complex of “social transformation”, about the shift from the fundamental process of burning things to something new and unknown.”

“PARA’s view is the view of this era from an assumed future. Looking back from a speculative time to a past that is our present. Looking from the future to the present opens up a lot. The Sonnenberg lends itself to this because you can see that a lot of things are just starting to happen here – the Kreativhof is a classic example, because now people are thinking: what is industry that is future-proof and sustainable?”

Tell us about one of your works that you like to think back on.

Philipp: “The Ruins of Speculation in Frankfurt. It was about the financial market’s ideas of the future. These are very specific ideas, those of an open, statistically modellable future, an undefined future. We realised that this idea would one day be just as much a thing of the past as, for example, the ideas about the future of antiquity are today, which is why we declared the Taunusanlage a World Heritage Site. We have shown people round the site and talked to many of them. They reacted intensively to the work; the fiction of travelling back in time that we brought into play was very strong in some cases.”

What were your first impressions of Chemnitz?

TheSystemCollective: “What we noticed were the many derelict sites. That a lot of things are being rebuilt – we have the feeling that we’ve arrived at the beginning of an unfolding process and that suits us quite well.”

Is there a favourite tool or software that you particularly enjoy working with?

TheSystemCollective:“It’s important to us to work with as much free software as possible. This includes Blender, for example, a 3D programme. On the programming side, we use Leaflet, Three.js and our own open source programmes; our map comes from OpenStreetMap. These are all programmes that have a participatory approach. We also try to convey this approach to the artists we introduce to the digital world. Normally, software makes the user the product; here, however, we are the owners of what we create. In the same way, it is important to us that the artists continue to own the work they place on our map.”

Tell us about one of your works that you like to think back on.

theSystemCollective: “Our artistic collaboration began at an exhibition in an empty shop in Vienna. The works created there were then digitally saved and transformed into virtual sculptures in the urban space. Artists from all disciplines were able to distribute their works throughout Vienna. The exhibition series was called “TheSystem – Phase.1″. Many artists whose exhibitions were cancelled approached us and motivated us to continue. It became clear: what we are doing is a museum without a fixed location. We are not curators per se, we share the platform for our own concepts and their placement in public space.”