Table of Contents
BienenFrequenz
artwork for public space, Hamburg
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequenz
concept of the artwork
The Intelligent Guerilla Beehive is a research project on the edge of art and science. It evokes issues of sustainability and biodiversity, giving viewers an artistic experience of my ongoing research related to the disappearance of the honeybee.
The goal of the Intelligent Beehive is a double one. At one hand it offers a safe refuge for city honeybees, and at the other hand is is a biosensor that interacts with the environment and that measures the pollution of the foraging fields around the beehive.
The commisioned version of the IGB (working title) is a bio-tech installation customized for public space in Hamburg. The IGB will be populated with a living bee colony and the beehive will be installed (with reservation) at the Entenwerder1 at the Golden Pavillion on the banks of the Elbe.
The IGB will remain on the spot for at least 1 bee-season (1 year). The behaviour of the bee colony will be monitored with a camera and the images will be streamed to a monitor that is placed in the exhibition displays (in the Golden Pavillion house). The conditions (Temperature and Humidity) in the bees’ habitat as well as outside in their foraging fields, will be recorded and the data will be streamed to and displayed in the exhibition. The beehive will act as a cradle to cradle device, meaning that it provides its own energy from solar panels placed on top of the beehive, and that it is made out of materials that are renewable. The solar energy will be stored in a battery before powering a microcomputer on which the camera and sensors are connected. A second (?) microcomputer will take care of the streaming of the camera- and sensordata.
The Golden Pavillion will host a small exhibition, where artifacts from different phases of the installation research will be displayed.
location hunting Hamburg
6/11/2018: meeting in Hamburg with Dirck and Gunnar
Locationhunting in Hamburg. Discussions on Art in Public Space-program with Dirck (cfr. Beuys Gesamtkunstwerk Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg and bee-information with Gunnar.
We should make a decision asap in order to plan the wood-production part of the Beehive in February the latest (check Vienna, Barcelona, Hamburg, Brussels - possible production places).
After the wood production, there will still be a lot of arrangements to make for
1. the installation on the site and especially for
2. the technology-related stuff (solarpanels, battery’s etc… but also connection to internet/router/wifi/ screens/display/sound/ ….). And as last there will be
3. Make the installation with all the research material and than, as cherry on the cake:
4. the introduction of the bees in the hive, on Workers’ day - the fist of May.
Maybe we can ask Oliver to read out loud from his CD/books Das Kapital???? A performance?
preferred artwork location
Entenwerder 1, Elbe banks, Hamburg
2 possibilities for the final Hive location
Golden Pavillion, for the exhibition IGB & streaming display
plants on location
Hamburg has a perfect digital service where you can see all trees in public space: strassenbaeume online. It is a perfect tool to find trees that bloom in spring and in autumn.
exhibition in Golden Pavillion
elements of the exhibition:
flatscreen streaming bees, camera hive
flatscreen sensors in/out (temperature and humidity)
maquettes, models, tests - design beehive and production beehive
tests laser engraving outside hive + growth of algae, mosses and lichen on it
foraging fields, plant samples
drawings
Beuys Gesammkunstwerkt Hamburg
literature
- D'Arcy Thompson: On Growth & Form
- The Social Behaviour of the Bees (Comparative Study) - Charles D. Michener
- Animal Architecture - Karl von Frisch
- Bee Democrcy - Thomas Seeley