Slow Teleport
June 23–September 29, 2019
Luxembourg
Invited by Casino Luxembourg – Forum d’art contemporain and Fonds Kirchberg, New York artists Alex Schweder and Ward Shelley have been in residence from May 17 to July 14, 2019. The culmination of their stay will be to present a new work piece of performance architecture Slow Teleport, as part of the biennial 1+1 project.
In stark contrast with the dominant highly designed architecture of Kirchberg’s Plateau area in Luxembourg the built form of Slow Teleport is improvised and temporary. Their wooden structure, adaptable and movable, briefly moves through an existing hedge labyrinth—from June 23 to July 3—and suggests a performative approach to architecture. Shedding the conventions of the proscribed structures sharing its site, built according to precise codes and standards, Slow Teleport aims to directly influence behaviours. Lighthearted and playful, it encourages interaction with its environment and among its occupants, who invite conversation with visitors. Its openness, or “transparency,” makes the occupants’ everyday actions and activities largely visible.
Slow Teleport is a direct response to the landscape maze in Kirchberg’s Parc Central, the district’s green heart. The performance features the two New York artists and their European counterparts Matthew Brown and Clemens Klein. Together, they live and work for ten days in a portable structure suspended above the maze, never leaving it and interacting with the outside world only through contact with curious visitors. The goal of the itinerant installation is to cross the maze without touching the ground, as if floating above the hedges. Picture the instant teleporting in Gene Roddenberry’s cult series Star Trek, or Jeff Goldblum’s scarier transformation in David Cronenberg’s film The Fly. Slow Teleport is far more low-tech. In fact, it begins with a simple grey, indefinably shaped object on wheels set at one of the entrances to the maze. Much too big to be pushed through the maze, it has to be “teleported” from one side to the other. To do this, the artists and their team build bridges linking elevated supply stations visible from the outside until they are slowly carried across the maze. Ultimately, all that remains of the slow teleportation are traces. A video by David Carlton Bright documenting the day-by-day progress will be viewable in the teleported object until the end of summer 2019.
Following Wennig & Daubach’s Recto Verso, in 2017, Slow Teleport is the second project selected for Kirchberg’s Parc Central maze following the 1+1 artist residency organized by Casino Luxembourg in collaboration with Fonds d’Urbanisation et d’Aménagement du Plateau de Kirchberg (Fonds Kirchberg).
Curators: Christine Walentiny and Katrijn Van Damme
Location: Maze at Parc Central, Luxembourg-Kirchberg
June 23, 2019: beginning of the performance, launch party
June 23–July 3, 2019 (24 hours): performance Slow Teleport
Until September 29, 2019: installation Slow Teleport
