The Power & Illumination Project #3

Gothenburg Presentation: In The European Union / Sweden

The third presentation of “The Power & Illumination Projects” was presented at Göteborgs Konsthall as a part of the exhibition ArtLink. For this occasion, P&I P cooperated with students from Chalmers University of Technology and with the fitness center Fysiken – both institutions parts of Gothenburg University.

The energy extracted at Fysiken was used for running a light-board at the facade of Göteborgs Konsthall. The board was lit throughout the duration of the exhibition, announcing statements relating to global energy-politics.

In the entrance of the exhibitionspace the EU energy-investigation continued, this time with Sweden as a target. Here, visitors could also and help keeping the project running and contribute to the P&I P energy-resources on a number of exercise bikes.

ArtLink featured Tellervo and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Annika Lundgren, Adrian Piper, Esther Shalev-Gerz, Superflex and Stephen Willats and took place between October 6, 2006 and January 7, 2007.

The Power & Illumination Project is based on the idéa of using fitness-centers as sources of energy. The kinetic energy being generated here is converted to electical energy, and is used to produce and mediate knowledge regarding the global energy balance and it’s political consequences.

The project does not operate with an economy based on financial profit, but rather with a target-oriented gathering and distribution of resources that would otherwise have gone to waste. The focus here is on the relationship between the power source and the power consumption. From this perspective, The P & I Project can be seen as a way of converting physical power into the power of knowledge.

The P & I Project was originally designed with the state of California as a model, as circumstances here provide an optimal basis for putting theory into practice. The fundamental idea, however, is applicable on most industrialized societies in the western world today - large and small.

The P & I Project has been going on since 2004, and is under continuous development.

technical development and supervision
Steven Steltenpool and Hilco Piel

technical implementation
Thomas Gustafsson, Martin Nordén and Björn Nilsson, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg

at Fysiken
David Horn and Stina Björkerud

at Göteborgs Konsthall
Lene Crone Jensen, Anna Hyltze, Jan Dahlqvist, Daniel Landahl, Dorota Lukianska, Cornelia Cederleüf, Andreas Hagström and Elisabet Udd

layout and design
Jens Johansen and Annika Lundgren

exhibition curator
Lene Crone Jensen

bikes provided by
StarTrade

produced in collaboration with
Göteborgs Konsthall and the exercise institute Fysiken