Takt - Kleine Fabel

The contribution by the zweintopf duo, Eva Pichler and Gerhard Pichler, to the Measuring the World exhibition is about territories and drawing invisible lines of demarcation. Their work Takt|Stumme Wächter (Beat|Silent Guardians) draws an acoustic demarcation line in the stairwell of the Kunsthaus Graz, emitting signals not perceptible to normal human hearing. The ultrasonic sound devices, which are used to keep out vermin, emit disturbing signals that make it clear that the space is occupied and who the space explicitly belongs to—even if it’s the public, it’s the human public here, not the beasties.

The zweintopf work on the BIX media façade is called Takt|Kleine Fabel (Beat|Little Fable). Couched in Morse code, it sends out a quasi-military message into the city. This is likewise about the demarcation of spaces, and uses a little fable of Kafka’s to show that this is defined by the power of the stronger.

‘Oh dear,’ said the mouse, ’the world is getting smaller every day. To start with, it was so wide-open I was afraid. I went on, and was glad to see at last walls in the distance, right and left, but these long walls are rushing towards each other at such speed that I’m already in the last room, and there in the corner is the mousetrap I’m heading for.’ ‘You only need change direction,’ said the cat. And gobbled it up. 

http://www.zweintopf.net/

zweintopf would like to thank Harald Okorn and Stefan Schweizer for programming.

Link to the source code: https://github.com/brillenheini/little-fable