Anke Eckardt creates a cross-species narrative of language, communication and social togetherness between the boat rental at Dutzendteich in the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in the east of the city and the Heizhaus, a former fire station in the west of the city. Animal bodies speaking in human language enjoy themselves in supposed recreational fun on the weekend - or are they performing for us? Who is actually performing for whom? Little by little they become stressed and fall apart until a rescue occurs. On the other side of the city, in a protected interior space, a group of the rescued creatures find themselves again. They breathe gently and remember together: Who were they? What happened? What can we be and how can we live together? From sounds, images, tones and hallucinations that weave early finds of paleontological tapping images in caves with algorithmically imagined futures, a world, shaping itself in sonic and visual forms, develops between the biomorphically formed creatures, free from the identity-giving nomenclature of human language.
Media sound artist, more precisely communication and politics / In her work, Anke Eckardt often deals with aspects of communication and politics. She explores fragile intersections between collective and individual identity and imagination, examines power relations and the politics of materiality, especially with regard to the development of new technologies. In her multimedia and sound installations as well as in her sculptures, she works with sound in combination with light, analog material, architecture, kinetic elements, text and new media. In intermedial interplay, she is interested in the possibilities of conceptual and aesthetic couplings and ruptures. She lives in Graz and works as a professor of fine arts at the University of Art and Design Graz.