The Hour Broadcast
Version 1
Curator: Basak Senova
Assistant curator: Irfan Hošić
Artists: Apparatus 22 + studioBASAR
Space layout: Alex Axinte, Cristi Borcan, George Marinescu
Location: ARK buncărul nuclear al lui Tito, Konjic, Bosnia şi Herzegovina
Period: 26 April - 26 September 2013
“The Hour Broadcast” (version 1) - five channel sound installation was presented in “Time Cube”, Time Machine 2nd Biennial of Contemporary Art, D-0 Ark Underground, Konjic, Bosnia & Herzegovina. This work is co-produced with the support of Project biennial, D-O ARK UNDERGROUND Konjic and KILOBASE BUCHAREST and is now on permanent display as part of the bunker’s art collection.
“There are three hundred people inside. The bunker is sealed off - the utmost protection against an atomic attack. Cut off from the world for an unspecified period, the chosen ones start to experience deep feelings of estrangement, claustrophobia, the torturous paranoia of being surrounded, an intoxicating curiosity to grasp the outside world’s new order. Fighting the imminent psychological meltdown, the radio receiver is the only connection this community has with reality.”
Set in a vague era, the joint work of Apparatus 22 + studioBASAR plays with the ambivalent power of radio to inform, empower, entertain as well as manipulate and stimulate the imaginary and with its legacy as a crucial communication tool in war times.
Initial Situation
The Bunker is an object rather than a building, an abstract space, exclusively interior, indifferent to any context as a self-contained world, where time is suspended. The spatial layout is decided by pragmatic reasons - technical, scientific, or military - having no left over spaces with no room for other uses.
The setting consisted in constructing a possible situation by transforming a military command bureau into a different space using the existing furniture - few chairs and tables, a desk, a closet and a couch - that were organized into a personalized and intimate space, support for the inhabitant’s dreams, desires or illusions.
The setting during the biennial.
Temporary and reversible, the setting mirrored the ambiguous situation of the bunker’s functional paradigm: in the same time military area, exhibit-museum of the cold war but also biennial venue for contemporary art. After the exhibition’s closure, the room becomes once more a command office, integrating in its original layout the radio box.
The setting after the closing of the biennial.
Version 2
“The Hour Broadcast” (version 2) - six channel sound installation by Apparatus 22 + StudioBASAR + SillyConductor was present between March 10 - June 8, 2014 in the exhibition “A FEW GRAMS OF RED, YELLOW, BLUE. New Romanian Art”, Ujazdowski Castle - Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw, Poland.
The Hour Broadcast” (version 2) - six channel sound installation by Apparatus 22 + StudioBASAR + SillyConductor was present between 20 June - 10 August 2014 whitin the exhibition ‚Apparatus 22 - Buy me a mystery’ at Nicodim Gallery, Bucharest, Romania.
Photo Roald Aron; courtesy of the artists, Galeria Nicodim and KILOBASE BUCHAREST
“The Hour Broadcast” (version 2) - six channel sound installation by Apparatus 22 + StudioBASAR + SillyConductor was present between 4 - 10th September 2014 in the exhibition ‚Apparatus 22 - AS GOOD AS GOLD’, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Sttutgart, Germany.
Photo Apparatus 22; courtesy of the artists and KILOBASE BUCHAREST