Die Ruhr Residence 2017 hat begonnen. Objekt meiner Untersuchung in den nächsten drei Monaten: der Phoenix-See in Dortmund Hörde. Wo ehemals eines der größten deutschen Stahlwerke stand ist jetzt ein prunkvolles Neubaugebiet rund um…
RETURN: Martin Schepers
Phoenix-See Project 2017
Martin Schepers (*1979 in Lengerich/Westphalia) focuses his work – part drawing, part installation – on the lessons that manmade technological giants like nuclear reactors, cargo freighters and mines can teach us about the conditio humana. His inspiration comes primarily from the philosophy of technology as pioneered by Ernst Kapp in 1877, when he coined the term Organ Projection. In it, he describes technological objects as analogous to human organisms – the hammer strengthens the fist, levers and cogwheels interlock like bones and joints, machines require nutrition in order to produce energy.
For quite some time, sociological aspects have been coming to the fore and with them deliberations on ideal cities. Schepers is thus drawn to a place where past and present, like the relationship between humans and technology, has only recently been radically transformed: the Phoenix-See in Dortmund’s Hörde district. Since 2010, the former grounds of the Hermannshütte steelworks are being converted into a mixed residential, commercial and leisure area. Thanks to the Hörder Heimatverein, a club devoted to the preservation of traditional characteristics of Dortmund-Hörde, a giant Thomas-Converter, used in the steelworks Bessemer processes, stands manifest of the times where the skies over Hörde turned red from the steelworks’ heat. Together with the residents of old and new Hörde, a new history of this region emerges. It is an approach of an ethnology of our own culture.
To Martin Scheper’s website
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the field research begins
Next week an important step in the Phoenix See Project starts: the field research. 200 envelopes are prepared for the people living around the Phoenix See. They are invited to make two drawings. One of…
The pictures of space are the dreams of the society
Today I read in Martina Löw “Raumsoziologie” (indeed a very good book!) a quotation by Siegfried Kracauer: “The images of space are the dreams of the society. Wherever the hieroglyphe of a space image is…
Willi Garth
Last week I had a meeting with Willi Garth, the chairman of the Hörder Heimatverein: three hours of history of Dortmund and Hörde. There is no chance to find this kind of informations in a…
Stadtarchiv
And also I had a meeting with Dr. Andrea Zupancic in the Stadtarchiv Dortmund, which was also important for my research. Thank you for the prospect of the old images. What was interesting for me…
ThyssenKrupp Archiv
On Monday I have been at the ThyssenKrupp archive. Many Thanks to Mister Andreas Zilt who excavated some amazing documents for me. It would be great to take these documents with me, which is not…
It is okay to cry here
Wandering and wondering around the Phoenix See: a very own world which I don`t understand yet.
starting the drone
Last week I made a flyover with a drone at the Phoenix See. Many thanks to Mr. P. Lambertus from Pixelhaus who was the pilot of the drone and Mr. D.Rojahn from the Stadtwerke Dortmund…
stills from the overflight
The new area around the Phoenix See looks like a Idealstadt 2017. Almost everything seems to be planned. Even small trees.