Exhibition text by Jeanne Charlotte Vogt accompanying the exhibition in the fliegende Künstler:innenzimmer (FlieKü):
When we arrive in a new neighbourhood, like FlieKü artist Olsen, we want to familiarise ourselves. We want to feel at home. And the best way to do that is to make contact with people. But how do we find contact with others at a time when we are already completely consumed by our daily commitments and our omnipresent digital social lives? Who gives us a smile on the way to work or school in the morning?
Olsen normally lives and works as an artist in a small town in the Black Forest. In his art, he examines the relationship between humans and machines, builds humorous robots and explores with playful curiosity the extent to which computers can really be intelligent. Of course, there are far fewer people in the Black Forest than in Frankfurt – people quickly get to know and trust each other there.
The question was how to find people for his own research and endeavours in the Frankfurt district of Preungesheim. On one of his first journeys on the U5, he sat very close to two young Preungesheim women who laughed all the way to the final stop – from the bottom of their hearts. Olsen quickly realised that perhaps you don’t need to get to know many people in such a big city. Maybe it’s enough to get to know one part of them: their laughter.
Olsen’s laughing memory game entitled Rīdeō, ergo sum introduces us to the most diverse voices of Preungesheim: a European BMX champion from 1985, a Preungesheim laughter yoga group, children from the neighbourhood or a pair of lovers from a Preungesheim park bench. The laughs differ from generation to generation, between cultures and life situations.
A number of Preungesheim residents contributed to the laughing memory – because Olsen offered a scoop of ice cream as a reward for every laugh. In the end, everyone had great fun talking to Olsen and one or two people had to ask themselves ‘when was the last time I laughed from the heart?’ or realised ‘the Germans really need to laugh more!’ In any case, the non-representative Preungesheim study showed that public laughter is not that easy – except perhaps for children. So is laughing from the heart as easy as pie? All Preungesheim residents are now invited to try it out and play their way through the laughs of their neighbourhood.
And perhaps we will all get to know Preungesheim a little better – the peculiarities and beauty of its voices – and feel a little more at home.
Exhibition views at Fliegendes Künstler:innenzimmer, Photos: Christoph Jakob
This work was created as part of a scholarship in the fliegende Künstler:innenzimmer (FlieKü) of the Crespo Foundation.