o
w
Sam – Five questions for Florence Jung
Sam. Florence Jung
A Fragment of Eden

Open Worlds

“Open Worlds” is a research project being realised by the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover, IMAGINE THE CITY in Hamburg, and the Museum Marta Herford. Together with artists, curators and users, the four institutions for contemporary art will be creating digital tours and artistic stagings in urban space. The platform interkit is being developed in cooperation with the Berlin-based developer team Jennifer Aksu, Holger Heißmeyer and Sebastian Quack as digital partners, and UX designers Sansho Studio.

The Project

“Open Worlds” follows a vision: to make interkit into an open, universal tool for the design of interactive, web- and smartphone-based cultural experiences in which spaces, media and people will be able to enter into continually new, reciprocal relations. The tradition of closely linking thought and ideas to movement and physical experience, which goes back to antiquity, serves as a model. This facilitates new perspectives and unexpected experiences, opening up connections between the seemingly unconnected.

In a first step, in so-called case studies, the institutions in the four cities are developing the various functionalities which the interkit platform will be able to offer in future: media player, map navigation, chat function or augmented reality. These components represent the app’s basic range of functions. Each case study is built upon a curatorial-artistic and communicative project.

interkit means that traditional communicative formats can be implemented as well as individual or group-based, playful stagings in urban space that relate artworks and everyday objects, private experiences and socio-political issues. The question of how art relates to the individual reality of life is dealt with on site. The content of the respective course is compiled by the participating project partners and artists and then combines with the users’ own content, which can be produced on site with their smartphones and integrated into the app.

Another focus is on the development of an intuitively operable editing system that enables people without programming experience to build their own apps.

The open-source approach is particularly important; by this means, the possibilities created in the project will be made available gradually to the public and especially to the developer community. “Open Worlds” is based on open processes, user orientation and co-creation.

The Alliance

The motivation behind the collaboration between two art museums in Siegen and Herford, a large art association in Hanover, an art project in the public space of Hamburg and a team of developers is the emergent opportunity to bring together these (institutionally) very different standpoints and geographical spaces. In each case, the different profiles and needs harbour specific know-how, which leads to an immense range of application perspectives.

Continuing changes in the media and their effects on art have been firmly anchored in the programme of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen since its foundation in 2001. The intention to adapt to media developments and to integrate digital innovations is an essential part of the museum’s conception.

Since its foundation in May 2005, the Museum Marta Herford has actively positioned itself in the digital realm: a dovetailing of the analogue and the digital as well as institutional and public space is the focus of attention here.

When the Kestner Gesellschaft was founded in 1916, it was created to present relevant contemporary and modern positions. Today, it is still about making use of the opportunities inherent in a temporary exhibition house against the backdrop of digital change and globalisation.

As an institution that intervenes in urban space starting from Hamburg’s HafenCity, IMAGINE THE CITYhas always been interested in interweaving digital and real space.

The Digital Partners

The Berlin developer trio from interkit completes the team of the cross-institutional research project “Open Worlds” as a digital partner. For ten years now, this interdisciplinary team has been working together on playful digital ideas for the art scene and so complements the alliance with a further perspective.

02.12.22
Sam – Five questions for Florence Jung
MGKSiegen

The artist Florence Jung has developed the digital art experience “Sam” in collaboration with the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen. The app with the same name, “Sam,” is available in the Apple App Store and the Google Playstore. In the interview, Florence Jung talks about who the fictional character Sam is, why she … .

28.10.22
Sam. Florence Jung
MGKSiegen

For the first time, the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen is presenting a digital art experience for smartphones in collaboration with the artist Florence Jung and the Berlin-based developer team interkit. Sam is the title of the app, which will be available for download from 28 October in the Apple App Store and … .

27.05.22
A Fragment of Eden
Kestner_Gesellschaft

The Kestner Gesellschaft presents the exhibition “A Fragment of Eden” in public and digital space and thus the third sub-project of “Open Worlds”. Visitors can chat with each other and the art objects via an app and navigate from artwork to artwork through Hannover’s city center. Over four months, the exhibited works … .

17.03.22
Florence Jung – MGKWalls
MGKSiegen

Florence Jung writes scenarios of situations that shift from fiction to reality, much in the same way that rumors can become facts in the digital age. Her works – none of which are documented through images – examine our relationship to uncertainty as well as how assumptions and anxieties shape our perception. … .

14.12.21
Cyber Dust: A Digital Parkour across Herford
Marta_Herford

The artist Martin Walde roamed extensively through Herford in search of unusual facets, recording his discoveries in a series of poetic and bizarre narratives. The result is an interactive exploratory tour which opens up possible perspectives and reveals surprising views of the seemingly familiar town. In the app, virtual phenomena are used … .

25.10.21
We found a digital partner: Go-ahead for the joint cultural project “Open Worlds”
Open_Worlds

The Berlin based developers Jennifer Aksu, Holger Heißmeyer and Sebastian Quack are completing the team of the cross-institutional research project “Open Worlds” as digital partners. This is the final step for the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, IMAGINE THE CITY Hamburg, the Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover and the Museum Marta Herford to begin with … .