Water and gas pipes, and cables for data, electricity, and sound have taken over O—Overgaden with the total installation SUPERADAPTER created by Danish artist Tommy Støckel.
Though they usually run in their own designated circuits, in this exhibition water, gas, data, electricity, and sound are connected to one joint network through “super adapters” – the ultimate transformer, invented by Støckel. As a completely unrealizable, DIY-generated fantasy, the super adapter illustrates humans’ constant, techno-utopian dream of improving tomorrow with new technology.
Støckel’s sculptural network is mainly constituted of 3D-rendered, geometric figures collected from open-source files, but in between the pixelated shapes, sculptural processings of local architecture from Christianshavn turn up. Affected by the idea of the infinite copies made possible by digital ready-mades, Støckel imitates architectonic, technological, and virtual objects from our surroundings and revives them within the context of the art institution. At the same time SUPERADAPTER winds itself as a coherent network from the back room and out through the windows to the façade of O—Overgaden in order to actively engage with the physical world outside.
With no exceptions, everything is connected in Støckel’s rhizomatic installation. Informed by infrastructural observations, architecture, and critical system thinking, the work makes us aware of how we are not isolated units but exist because of our connections to everything else.
Tommy Støckel (b. 1972, DK) holds an MFA from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, and lives in Berlin. He has had previous solo shows at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, SMART Project Space in Amsterdam, Nikolaj Kunsthal in Copenhagen, and Arnolfini in Bristol.
This exhibition is made possible with the support of the Danish Arts Foundation and the City of Copenhagen.