Scotch spider web. Installations For Use / Numen

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

For some, 35 kilometers of duct tape would be enough for a lifetime, and the For Use / Numen design group consumes that amount of duct tape in just a few days. This is because usually people glue torn banknotes with tape or pack boxes with it, and our heroes make installations out of it that look like a huge spider web.

Typically, designers find an empty space and begin to "weave" nets from scotch tape, like real spiders. Although, however, their installations have an interesting feature: in fact, their central part resembles huge cocoons, in the middle of which several people can easily fit - and viewers are happy to use the opportunity to explore an unusual art object not only from the outside, but also from the inside.

Over the past year, the "web" of scotch tape has already been created three times in different cities, and its fourth public appearance will take place very soon: from June 9 to 13 at DMY Berlin's International Design Fair. Installations, which are unlikely to appeal to arachnophobes, each time increase in size: the first work, which was in a small Croatian gallery, spent almost 8 kilometers of scotch tape; the next work appeared in an abandoned attic in Vienna and consisted of 14.5 kilometers of adhesive tape. Finally, the last installation took place inside the Odeon, the former Vienna Stock Exchange, and took about 35 kilometers of duct tape, weighing 45 kilograms, to create.

“The installation is based on the idea of a dance performance, in which a form is created from the movements of dancers between columns,” explains Christoph Katzler, one of the authors of the project. "The dancers stretch the tape as they move, and the final shape is a kind of record of the entire choreography."

For Use / Numen is an Austro-Croatian design team that includes Sven Jonke, Christoph Katzler and Nikola Radeljkovic.