Interlocked Systems

Jelena Micić_Raphael Volkmer from collective Precious Plastic Vienna

The project Interlocked Systems / Systemischer Zusammenhalt evolved out of an exchange between artist Jelena Micić and Raphael Volkmer of the collective Precious Plastic Vienna on plastics as an extremely ambivalent material with many potentials and dangers. The project’s ultimate trigger was a newly formulated EU law on so-called “tethered caps” – a design proposal for bottle caps to remain securely attached to the bottle via a locking system, thereby reducing the likelihood of them becoming litter or marine pollution.

The result of this collective reflection and artistic experimentation is a modular, constantly transforming installation consisting of numerous connectible plastic rings made of recycled high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic. The interaction of visitors and the use of an open-source injection moulding machine cause the installation to continuously evolve and expand in the space – just like intertwined polymers chains. The raw material of the rings is shredded bottle caps, which are injected into an aluminium mould designed for this purpose. The mould can produce five modular rings at once.

Interlocked Systems / Systemischer Zusammenhalt is the first of three openings in the frame of the “growing” exhibition Ping Pong in VERSUCHSANSTALT. For three sub-openings, Kunsthalle Exnergasse teamed up a female artist with an artist or one of the WUK workshops.

Each of the interdisciplinary collaborations forms a contribution that integrates into the VERSUCHSANSTALT project in a performative, installative, or accumulative way. Taking on various forms, the interventions respond to each other, intrude, oscillate between genres, or distance themselves from what is present in the space.