RhyCycling – Fluid Borderland (2010-13)
Original German title: RhyCycling – Grenzraum im Fluss
CH/FR/DE 2010-13 / HD / artistic-scientific research / 100 minutes of videos, sound essays, texts, graphics / Swiss dialect, German, French / German & English version / various presentation formats (exhibition, bridge head/line tunnel walking tour, panel, workshops)
Concept, research and realisation
Research team: Flavia Caviezel (lead), Mirjam Bürgin, Marion Mertens, Yvonne Volkart
Collaboration research project / exhibition
Anselm Caminada, Theres Jörger, Oliver Koch, Tweaklab Basel
Ketty Bertossi, Shirin Disler, Judith Dobler, Samuel Hanselmann, Noemi Schäfer, Trisul
Project partners
Office for Environment and Energy BS, Civil Engineering Office, Life Science AG, Trinational Environmental Centre Weil a. R., University of Basel (sustainability programmes), TU Darmstadt (Philosophical Institute), Eawag
Production / Funding
University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Academy of Art and Design (FHNW HGK); funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and some project partners.
Exhibitions / Conferences
RhyCycling – Grenzraum im Fluss, exhibition at Uferstrasse 90/Klybeck Basel (2012).
Workshop Swiss Artistic Research Network SARN, HSLU Design & Art Lucerne (2012); Year-end exhibition Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur (2012/13); NATUR-Messe & experimenta13 Basel, Environmental Days Basel, Balance-Unbalance Conference Noosa/AUS (skype lecture), Electronic Visualisation and the Arts Conference London (exhibition/presentation); IBA Basel 2020 project show; Hochschule für Wirtschaft FHNW (lecture) (all in 2013); International Ethnographic Film Festival Göttingen (festival exhibition/lecture 2014); Acqua Roma Conference, Istituto Svizzero Rome (lecture 2019).
Synopsis
The river Rhine as flowing border area forms boundaries of communities, cantons and countries from his origin in Grison/Eastern Switzerland until the entrance into the sea in Rotterdam. It is water and power provider, living and working space – an ecological, socio-economical and cultural divers microcosmos.
Over a period of 2 1/2 years, our interdisciplinary research team studied in the context of the project RhyCyling – Esthetics of sustainability in the Basel border area the diverse uses of the Rhine in the region of Switzerland-Germany-France and its often surprising entanglements of human and non-human environments. The life in, on and around the Rhine – fish fauna, aspects of energy, utilisation of the riverbank – as well as future changes, planned or imagined, were questioned and documented with video and audio recordings. The special foci allowed to show interdependencies inside of the ecosystem with local and global relevance.
The edited material of the audiovisual research – 100 minutes of videos, sound essays, texts, graphics – representing the at that time current situation and reflecting the heterogeneity of this area is organised on an interactive computer platform. Users may select and surf through those materials by themselves and discover individual facets, relationships and dependencies. An open ‘dramaturgy’ of trials, opportunities and approaches emerges.
The exhibition RhyCycling – Fluid Borderland containing the interactive computer platform and several spatial installations premiered in autumn 2012 at the harbour of Basel.
Publications
Flavia Caviezel. RhyCycling – Fluid Borderland. Proceedings of the Conference Electronic Visualisation and the Arts EVA. London 2013: 310-311.
Flavia Caviezel, Sabine Hagmann. Modes of Collaboration. In: Media_N, Journal of the New Media Caucus, Spring 2014, V.10 N.01. Online: http://median.newmediacaucus.org/art-infrastructures-hardware/4118-2
Flavia Caviezel. RhyCycling – Fluid Borderland. Processes of Knowledge Creation, Conference Paper. In: ISEA2014 Dubai. Location. Proceedings of the 20th International Symposium on Electronic Art 2015: 76-82. http://www.isea2014.org/en/Submission/ISEA2014_Proceedings.pdf
Flavia Caviezel. Deep involvement: On Transformation Processes Related to the RhyCycling Project. In: Wolfgang Jonas et al. (Eds.). Transformation Design. Basel: Birkhäuser/BIRD 2016: 43-60. http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/460125
Project website
www.rhycycling.ixdm.ch (project website)
www.explore-rhycycling.ixdm.ch (material demonstrator)
