Technology and art: in itself a classic of the pairs of opposites. Technology-savvy people often do not necessarily have artistic talent. Conversely, artistically inclined people are not typically tech professionals. These are of course rough generalizations, and exceptions always prove the rule anyway. But somehow you still know from your school days that there is something to certain talent connections: the physics and math advanced course participants were mostly also good athletes, but had no desire for art, would be a sentence from experience, for example. Ingolstadt’s cultural association “Kap94” overcomes the school experience sentence: Without much fuss, the members with technical professions (and there are some in Kap94, certainly more than in the average art association) help the artists of the Kap network when they have come up with concepts , which they then technically overwhelm in the implementation. And then artists come and go in the Kap who refute the cliché – or who are the exception to the rule, as you like to see it: technically and artistically talented people who work at the interface between the two worlds.
Events on the green roof of the fortress – actually more of a profit than an emergency solution
When the Kap became vacant in December 2015, a group of full-time, part-time and free-time creative people from Ingolstadt got together to make something out of the place. Surrounded on three sides by the Künettegraben is the listed Kaponiere (fortress technician German for a defense building) with the number 94. Several work rooms are grouped around an atmospheric event room. A lot revolves around this room in the “Cultural and Creative Workshop Kap94”. It’s not called the “workshop” for nothing, but on the one hand the Kap offers workspace for artists. However, because there is not unlimited space in the compact fortress building, the facility is primarily a meeting place and venue. The Kap is hit particularly hard by the fact that it has to close its interior at the moment: the building authority has ordered a fire protection overhaul. The salvation of the cape this summer was its roof garden: whatever wanted to grow on the fortress for a long time. The overgrown garden has now been tended by Kap members and furnished with a self-built bar and a covered stage. So most of it can take place outside, and life in the Cape doesn’t have to lie completely fallow – until it gets too uncomfortable in autumn, then you have to see what’s next.
A number of cabaret, reading and music evenings have taken place here over the past few months. Well-known faces of the Bavarian cabaret and music scene such as Björn Puscha and Michael Sailer were allowed to perform this year. A weekly event that is still ongoing was introduced in times of strict distance rules and is possible due to the exceptional situation of the Cape: Musicians from different areas play on Sundays in one of the cape’s street-facing windows – on the other side of the moat deckchairs are set up for the listeners. Anyone who is interested and gets a seat can sit down and experience a free open-air concert.
With its DJ evenings, the Kap also continues the tradition of the address: before it became a creative cultural site, the building with the sound-absorbing walls was called “Batterie94” and was a disco that is said to have attracted everything that Ingolstadt wore wickedness has to offer. This was recently linked to, for example, by the Ingolstadt sound artist Bernhard Hollinger, who now lives in Berlin, but remains loyal to the Kap at least when he visits home and organized a lo-fi evening on his last visit. Lo-Fi stands for “Low Fidelity”, which actually means “low production quality”: Everything sounds a bit muffled, you can hear imperfections in places. The sound should form a counterpoint to the cold perfection of today’s mainstream music, sound more improvised and relaxed. With a lo-fi producer, the Kap has certainly unearthed one of the more technical job descriptions the music world has to offer. So back to the intermediary role between art and technology that was already touched upon.
Some Kap members have technical jobs – and contribute enormously with their skills
In the technology-savvy Audi capital of Ingolstadt, it is at least a little closer than usual that there are also technicians among the Kapler with non-creative bread jobs. This know-how from technical professional fields has already been indispensable for many projects, reports Johannes Greiner, founding member and board member since last year together with Mona Huber. For example, the steampunk-inspired “Insect” lights by artist Tom Parthum were created with the help of an electrotechnically trained Kap member. The Kap colleague takes care of the wiring, Parthum does the rest himself – so perfectly that the lights almost look like they were machine-made in the end. The components suggest that there is quite a bit of work to be done simply in finding suitable individual parts for the lights: the shell of the “Butterfly” light, for example, is screwed together from aluminum spice scoops from the hardware manufacturer Wilesco. Parthum found the plastic scoops underneath at a company that supplies pharmacies with laboratory technology. Flexible goosenecks were used as sensors and cable guides. The feet of the butterfly are self-made, as are the wings made of acrylic glass.
Artist Tom Parthum builds steampunk-inspired insect lights, with a colleague from Kap 94 helping with the wiring.
(Photo: Tom Parthum)
Markus Jordan also brings impressive technical skills with him, part of the hard core of the Cape and is also artistically active in addition to being a light artist: as a props manager in the municipal theatre. Nonetheless, in the Cape he is the prime example of someone who can do both art and technology. In Jordan’s studio, which, like the cape, belongs to the old city wall of Ingolstadt and in which he often works through the night, one feels how suddenly one has become part of a “Where is Walter” search image. Jordan’s pieces revolve around technical ideas, which he implements with great perfectionism. Dubbed the “light at the end of the tunnel,” his luminous “hyperboloid” was created during the pandemic. That’s the name of the geometric shape that would result if you twisted two circles connected at the edges by strings into each other, he explains. The “Mae West”, the work of art constructed from black rods on Munich’s Effnerplatz, for example, is a (giant) hyperboloid. “The Laboratory”, a large collection of his perfectionistically implemented technical ideas, was recently on display in Ingolstadt’s city palace.
But with all the passionately worked nights, with all the enthusiasm for the cause that one feels in the Kap, in conversation with the Kap artists it also becomes clear how difficult and sobering it is often to make a living from being an artist, especially since Corona . Some are trying to campaign for a change on a large scale: Parthum is the initiator of a petition that calls for an appreciation contribution for art and culture as a general tax. But for the time being, the strong cohesion in the Cape is a relief. The Kaplers all tell you about the strong community, but you can also sense it when you hear how the projects in the Kap come about. The Kap is always open to expanding the community: everyone should be able to come and participate, as long as feasible suggestions are brought to the table. Somewhere it’s a “classic cultural center philosophy” – but what is just an empty slogan in many institutions is really lived in the Kap after everything you see and hear – with an impressively professional output.
chap94Jahnstraße 1a in Ingolstadt, telephone 0841/88681580