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HOT STUFF is an exercise in using open source internet knowledge for the making of an offline shared public space.Rocket mass heaters are a very efficient technology that utilises small amounts of fuel (wood) for a maximum output. With the rise of open source knowledge and the online DIY scene, ‘how to built a rocket mass heater’ became an internet phenomenon. We invite participants to learn and experiment together with forming such a heater into a hot bench, activating thus the public space in front of the USR storefront. The bench will be covered with self-made ceramic tiles made with Nerikomi, a japanese technique to create patterns with colored clay. Two smaller rocket stoves for cooking with fire will complete our learning experience. Once installed, we will inaugurate HOT STUFF with a celebratory gathering with music, a communal ‘rocket dinner’ and story-sharing. Last but not least, we will pack and prepare the installation for conservation, so that it can be a ready kit for a re-installation, with more wisdom and a longer duration. Everyone is welcome; please come anyway, even if you can’t engage for the whole process.
PUBLIC PROGRAM
Nov 20-22
10-14:00 DIY Rocket Mass Heater Workshop
16-19:00 DIY Ceramic Nerikomi Tiles Workshop
Nov 23
16-19:00 DIY Rocket stoves Workshop
Nov 24
18:00 “How does a rocket mass heater work?” Presentation and talk
Nov 26
16-19:00 Communal celebration with food, fire, philosophy and music!
Nov 27
10-15:00 DIY Conservation workshop
TUTORS
Valentina Karga with Mascha Fehse and Sébastien Tripod.
Valentina Karga, born in Chalkidiki, Greece, is an artist and architect based in Berlin. After she got her masters in architecture from the University of Thessaly, she has been a fellow at the Graduate school, University of the Arts Berlin (UdK). Valentina’s projects encourage engagement and participation, facilitate practices of commoning and are concerned with sustainability. Her fascination of subcultures, lead Valentina’s work to often challenges societal taboos about topics such as human waste, money, autonomous living and spirituality. Some times, together with the participants, through dialogue and building prototypes in a DIY manner, they end up imagining alternatives for societal structures, such as economic and pedagogic institutions. She is also a founding member of Collective Disaster, an interdisciplinary group that works in the interstices of art, architecture and the social realm. Among others, her work has been shown at the National Museum of Contemporary Art in Athens, the transmediale festival, the Athens Biennial, Kiasma museum, a major exhibition curated by Whitechapel Gallery and she has been awarded the Vilém Flusser Residency for Artistic Research 2015.
Mascha Fehse is a Berlin-based architect. Next to her master studies at Berlin University of the Arts she is frequently engaged in projects performing on the border of architecture, art and cultural practices. She is confronting questions of the public and the common, focussing on micro-collisions, applied experimental approaches and a design discourse that triggers curiosity and leaves space for an attitude. She is intrigued by moments that allow a multiplicity of motivation and coexistence of contradictions. Social constellation, infrastructural relations, structural connections and imaginative associations are issues that occupy her.
Sébastien Tripod ist ein Architekt und gelernter Bauzeichner aus der Schweiz. Er arbeitet in Zusammenarbeit mit Künstlern und Kulturproduzenten an temporären Installationen im öffentlichen Raum, an prozessorientiertem Bauen mit einem Fokus auf Partizipation und Selbstbau und an an Projekten im Bestand mit besonderem Interesse an traditionellen Bautechniken und dem Dialog zwischen Konzeption und Handwerk.