Residencies für Künstler:innen bringen internationale Impulse in die lokalen Kunst- und Kulturszenen und fördern den länderübergreifenden Austausch zwischen Künstler:innen. Mit Calin Segal hat die GRAND GARAGE erstmals einen Artist in Residence, zustande kam die Residency über das Ars Electronica Festival.

GG. Was waren deine ersten Eindrücke, als du zum ersten Mal hier warst?

Calin: I should have gone more ambitious for my project. Because I didn't really know what I would find here and how much time I would have here. I was lucky to find a space like this where I can just go full on.

GG: Gibt es ein Thema, das du als Künstler immer wieder aufgreifst?

Calin: For subject matters, it really oscillates between systems of power and natural systems. It's a way of investigating how people's behavior are affected by different mechanisms within our social life.

In this case, I was curious to see how people react when they have to express their own desire. Do they choose to act collectively or individually? So that's where the reference to a poem, to a chess game comes from. Because it's about how territories get formed by internal pressure and external pressure.

A lot of my work is about breaking down existing mechanisms. In this case geopolitical mechanisms are reduced to a simplified condition: the internal pressure of a country and the external pressure by its neighbor is defined as the outside. And then you put the audience in the place of the decision maker.

GG: Hast du eine Präferenz was Materialen oder Medien angeht?

Calin: Interactive installations are kind of my go-to. Because a lot of times, when you create this kind of computational systems, it's you by yourself. So the idea is to bring the audience into that kind of discovery process that I'm doing in my own practice. And letting them experience it as well.

GG: Tell us about the project you are working on here.

Calin: It's a social experiment disguised as an interactive installation. I’m curious about this: It's easy to be a hippie on paper and to be all lovey-dovey and community… But when you're put in front of an actual situation, how do you react? In this case, you have a blank slate, in which you can draw the outline of your map, of your territory that you wish to become your expression. Do you choose to help somebody that's already drawn a map and extends his own territory? Or do you choose to conquer it, so you have your own piece of space?

GG: Und wie hat sich das Arbeiten im MakerSpace auf dein Projekt ausgewirkt?

Calin: On the hardware side, it really helped me develop the project from just a simple outline on paper to bringing it to a physical shape. So before arriving here, I didn't really have a specific idea of how this interactive device would work within the grand scheme of the installation. Most of the computational part, the projection mapping, and everything was already done, but I didn't have the interface. So talking with different people around here, also just seeing what other people do kind of triggered ideas, made me reflect on some stuff.

GG: Und wie ist das Arbeiten im MakerSpace im Vergleich zu anderen Umgebungen, in denen du bisher gearbeitet hast?

Calin: I have the privilege of working in various Makerspaces around the world. That's one of the beauties of being a nomad doing residency, you can see different spaces. But when you think of a Makerspace, you don't think of this behemoth of infrastructure. I can think about, let's say, a quarter of what it is here. A nice little corner with 3D printers and maybe a laser cutter if you're lucky.But here it's a proper infrastructure for prototyping. So it's really different from what you'd consider a Makerspace. It's closer to a Fab Academy or a kind of teaching and also sharing space.

GG: Eine letzte Frage: Würdest du sagen, dass das Arbeiten hier eine Wirkung hatte auf dich als Künstler oder als Person?

Calin: When you move into this kind of residency spaces and you only have a couple of months, it's very hard sometimes socially. So being here, it was nice just from the beginning, being in the same space with everybody, making some friends, going to a beer afterwards, talking about the kind of shared passions. From a social aspect, it really was an easy way to move into a new city for a short amount of time.

GG: Danke für das Gespräch.