Waste Water Fountain
Artwork by SUPERFLEX, designed in collaboration with KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes and Luise Marter)
4 June – 18 September 2016
Emscherkunst 2016, Germany
Waste Water Fountain was presented as part of Emscherkunst 2016. Emscherkunst is a triennial taking place for the third time between the cities of Holzwickede, Dortmund, Castrop-Rauxel, Recklinghausen and Herne: this 50 km long art trail deals with the conversion of the Emscher river as well as the urban and industrial transformation of the landscape in the Ruhr area. The Emscher river, once a small and lively river, was during the industrialization turned into an open canal for waste water, an open gut of the region.
As part of a ‘re-naturalisation’ project, the Emscher is turned into an imagined version of what it originally was and the waste water is being channelled into underground pipes. Step by step, the Emscher river and its tributaries will be transformed and improved ecologically. Waste Water Fountain asks if there isn’t an essential element being lost in the sanitisation of the industrial version of the Emscher river: it might just be that this smelly and potentially health hazardous river teaches us something about the fundamentals of human civilization - an element that gets lost in the process of ‘re-naturalisation’.
Its design is the result of a research process on what would be the archetype capable of immediately rendering the image of a fountain without detracting from the strangeness of having such a structure floating on a waste water canal. We studied various types of fountains, from the Renaissance Fontaine des Innocents in Paris and the Baroque Fontana Antica in Rome, both of which achieve their decorative effect through a combination of sculptural qualities and a simple water effect operated by gravity, to the spectacular fountains of the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris which much like today’s Bellagio Hotel fountain in Las Vegas owe their whimsical character to their complex water and light effects.
Waste Water Fountain is composed of three octagonal basins mounted on a floating barge supplied by high volume pumps: these create an effect similar to that of cascading aerators, common in water treatment processes and capable of oxygenating the Emscher river while emphasizing the fact that an open waste water canal flows through an affluent part of Western Europe and is not hidden in the underground. By placing a four-meter high fountain in the middle of the Emscher river, we celebrate the river as social gut in the landscape where we all meet on equal terms. It points to the commonality of our waste and the fact that we are all subject to a universal process of corruption. At night the fountain lights up and during the 100 days of Emcherkunst the waste of high and low flows collectively through the fountain.
Artwork by SUPERFLEX, designed in collaboration with KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes and Luise Marter)
4 June – 18 September 2016
Emscherkunst 2016, Germany
Waste Water Fountain was presented as part of Emscherkunst 2016. Emscherkunst is a triennial taking place for the third time between the cities of Holzwickede, Dortmund, Castrop-Rauxel, Recklinghausen and Herne: this 50 km long art trail deals with the conversion of the Emscher river as well as the urban and industrial transformation of the landscape in the Ruhr area. The Emscher river, once a small and lively river, was during the industrialization turned into an open canal for waste water, an open gut of the region.
As part of a ‘re-naturalisation’ project, the Emscher is turned into an imagined version of what it originally was and the waste water is being channelled into underground pipes. Step by step, the Emscher river and its tributaries will be transformed and improved ecologically. Waste Water Fountain asks if there isn’t an essential element being lost in the sanitisation of the industrial version of the Emscher river: it might just be that this smelly and potentially health hazardous river teaches us something about the fundamentals of human civilization - an element that gets lost in the process of ‘re-naturalisation’.
Its design is the result of a research process on what would be the archetype capable of immediately rendering the image of a fountain without detracting from the strangeness of having such a structure floating on a waste water canal. We studied various types of fountains, from the Renaissance Fontaine des Innocents in Paris and the Baroque Fontana Antica in Rome, both of which achieve their decorative effect through a combination of sculptural qualities and a simple water effect operated by gravity, to the spectacular fountains of the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris which much like today’s Bellagio Hotel fountain in Las Vegas owe their whimsical character to their complex water and light effects.
Waste Water Fountain is composed of three octagonal basins mounted on a floating barge supplied by high volume pumps: these create an effect similar to that of cascading aerators, common in water treatment processes and capable of oxygenating the Emscher river while emphasizing the fact that an open waste water canal flows through an affluent part of Western Europe and is not hidden in the underground. By placing a four-meter high fountain in the middle of the Emscher river, we celebrate the river as social gut in the landscape where we all meet on equal terms. It points to the commonality of our waste and the fact that we are all subject to a universal process of corruption. At night the fountain lights up and during the 100 days of Emcherkunst the waste of high and low flows collectively through the fountain.
