Martin Walde | Open Borders | Martin Walde and Jens Asthoff (page 2)


		Open Borders \| Martin Walde and Jens Asthoff

		continued from page 1

terms:		That interests me, and that's why putting polystyrene and a bottle on the floor was a very precise act.
Der Duft der verblühenden Alpenrose
	p. 1	I feel that the typical openness of your work is not so much based on aesthetic arguments and conceptuality alone but moves on from there much more strongly towards experience, towards getting involved in things, and participation. Then differences start to emerge, of course: some people get it to an extent, others can't make head or tail of it. Could one say that you mark out aesthetically precise starting conditions as a field of possibilities in which you address this very openness? Because often it's about giving up or losing control. You mentioned the work groups Loosing Control and Enactments , but this element also crops up in territorial confrontations between visitors and animals. I am thinking of Wormcomplex, The Invisible Line or the dovecote, The Big Perch.
Enactments	p. 1, 2, 5, 6
Loosing Control	p. 1, 2, 5, 6
Wormcomplex	p. 2, 3, 4
The Invisible Line	p. 2, 4
The Big Perch	p. 2, 5
Tie or Untie	p. 2, 3, 4
Green Gel	p. 3
Shrinking Bottles / Melting Bottles
	p. 3
Jelly Soap	p. 3, 9	I am interested in the possibility of leaving something open to evolution, which means that I am capable at any time of allowing myself to be seduced by a possibility arising from someone else responding to the work. In a form that means I learn to understand and look at something differently again. To that extent I actually see myself as a participant, not as someone staging and controlling things.
Handmates	p. 3, 9
The Tea Set	p. 3
Fridgerose	p. 3
Clips of Slips	p. 6
NOFF #1	p. 7, 8	What would be a good example of that?
NOFF #2	p. 7, 8	It applies to all the works really. Many of them definitely had the potential to transform themselves into rituals, scientific rituals, for example and then there's a tendency on my side to pursue that further. But sometimes it also happens that you start something off as a ritual and then the thing reacts completely differently.
NOFF #3	p. 7, 8
NOFF #4	p. 7, 8
Siamese Shadow	p. 8
Concoctions	p. 8	... which can be very exciting.
Liquid Dispenser	p. 8	... that's right, but if I try to control what should or must be happening I spoil this opportunity for myself completely. And I also spoil it for the people I am actually trying to reach.

		What does that imply about categorizing or evaluating the works? When have they succeeded, and when have they perhaps failed?

		Actually it did become important for me to define that at some time or other. I wondered what loaded words like "inconsistent" and "irrelevant" meant to me. Demanding consistency always means formalizing failure, in that a consistent work always has to imply from the outset what its potential failure would consist of. I wanted to look at that more carefully and I actually got over it with Tie or Untie . The work is indestructible, it doesn't matter what you do to it, it always remains what it is.(continued on next page)


authors:
Jens Asthoff
Martin Walde