Lebensraum / Living Space / Sven Windszus (DE), Photo: tom mesic

Lebensraum / Living Space

Sven Windszus (DE)

New Animation Art

Honorary Mention

With Lebensraum, Sven Windszus wants to invite each participant to use their own muscle power to control the growth of our species. He has reduced the real conditions we are facing to a form of physical experiment. The problem of overpopulation, the resulting destruction of our living space and the steady rise in sea levels, have been put into a visual context.

Pressing on the pump causes heads to appear. If too many heads are pumped up, the available space expands, but the rising water level problem worsens.

Just a few movements of the pump should make it clear to participants where this experiment is headed. The question is: how do we deal with this responsibility—do we keep pumping and see more and more heads pushed under the water or do we halt the process before this happens?

In his work, Sven Windszus wants to engage with the phenomenon that, although we have recognized the problem of overpopulation and the resulting destruction of our environment, this realization is not usually reflected in our actions. Lebensraum renders this contradiction tangible.

Jury Statement

Sven Windszus’s interactive art installation invites its audience into a physical experiment. The work explores the issue of overpopulation, and the resulting destruction of the environment and rising sea levels. The pump symbolizes the economic and human growth that started to rise exponentially with the introduction of the steam engine in the early 19th century. Pressing on the pump causes heads to appear, and as each one is added, the available space expands, but the rising water level problem worsens. With just a few movements of the pump, the heads quickly appear underwater, and the following error message “UNEXPECTED ERROR. RECOVERING LIVING SPACE” will appear. With this installation Sven Windszus aims to ask questions about causality and responsibility. Do we keep pumping, or do we halt the process before the screen is underwater?

Excerpt from the jury statement

Credits

Work and concept: Sven Windszus Programming: Johannes Deml (https://deml.io/ ) and Alexander Jasper

Engineering support: Ulrich Kwade

Sven Windszus (DE)

Sven Windszus is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Berlin whose practice merges digital art, installation, and mixed media. He was born in 1974 and studied at the University of Applied Science and Art in Hildesheim, Northern Germany. Throughout his professional career, Windszus has worked as a motion designer for companies to promote products and position brands in such a way that they attract the public’s attention and generate profits. In 2018, the artist began to explore existential questions with an artistic approach to motion design to counter the superficial, meaningless nature of the commercial art field.