The Rhine Swing

Veit Stratmann research makes use of the unrealised and the concept of unrealisability as a tool to deal with - in line with a conceptual tradition - political or economic-political discourses, often connected with the concept of security and with the structures of power, from a critical point of view and trying to give a clear form to the discourse while questioning the role of the artist himself, reflecting on impossibility and inefficiency as elements for the production of a project. The Rhine Swing is a project for a giant swing to be placed over the Rhine River, between the locations of Daubensand (Alsace, France) and Schwanau (Baden, Germany), a site identified by the artist for the relatively low amplitude of the river as well as the beauty of the landscape. A representation - not without irony - of the Franco-German cooperation, this project contains a first feasibility analysis through a study of the modalities of access, operation and use together with the security requirements, a study which reveal himself as a functional tool for the artist to criticise the design method and, more generally, the economic and political dynamics between the European countries.
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