PUBLIC PARKS

Everywhere asphalt covers the earth, the longing for green arises.

With the onset of industrialisation, more and more people moved into the cities, parks that had previously been reserved for the nobility were made accessible to the public and new facilities were created. For a good hundred years, urban planners and architects have been looking for creative ways to design and play with public space.

This field of tension between urban and green space is explored by bassist and composer Kurt Holzkämper and tap dancer and photographer Thomas Marek in their new project "Public Parks". Five well-known green spaces - the Schloßgarten in Stuttgart, Planten un Blomen in Hamburg, Tempelhof in Berlin, the Prater in Vienna and the Schlosspark in Eisenstadt - are visualised, set to music, condensed and alienated in an interplay of music, dance and photography. The result is five abstract and sensually perceptible individual portraits of urban landscapes.

In an exhibition space, played by compositions in a surround sound system, video projections, large-format photographs and live performances with tap and double bass, these portraits come together. In the process, the parks themselves become the instrument: subways, park benches or rubbish bins and even plants become new kinds of sound sources with the help of electronic sensors and tap sounds. Depending on the listening and viewing angle, the compositions change - visitors moving around the space or sitting on a bench in the middle of the room experience the park as a performance and immerse themselves in a sensual abstraction of urban-green worlds with the audiovisual sound installations.