STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg - VIRTUAL BATHING - from memory to vision
The STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg transforms the historic Bauhaus Stadtbad (1930-2000) into an interdisciplinary, international art forum. The virtual Stadtbad VIRTUAL BATHING has been expanded into an interactive, multimedia, digital art, laboratory and place of remembrance. We need new, holistic, intuitive, reflective places where social beauty, new interfaces between society, art and science and barrier-free inclusion of the population are possible.
www.stadtbad.eu, www.virtualbathing.eu
Cross-border/international
Germany
Belgium
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Poland
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Malta
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Austria
Member State(s), Western Balkans and other countries: Croatia
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
Yes
2022-12-31
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): STADTBAD e.V. Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Anne Last name of representative: Müller Gender: Female Nationality: Germany Function: First Board Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Altstädtische Fischerstraße 17 Town: Brandenburg an der Havel Postal code: 14770 Country: Germany Direct Tel:+49 3381 3287513 E-mail:kontakt@stadtbad.eu Website:http://www.stadtbad.eu
The STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg transforms the historic Bauhaus Stadtbad into an interdisciplinary, international art forum. The virtual city pool VIRTUAL BATHING has been expanded into an interactive, multimedia, digital art, laboratory and place of remembrance. Since 2019, we have been committed to preserving the Bauhaus Stadtbad, which was open between 1930 and 2000 and was abandoned for residential construction. After 3 years of conceptual, strategic and artistic-cultural development, a very positive point has been reached: the bath will be renovated in accordance with monument regulations, no housing will be built, the bath will be included in the list of World Heritage Sites and is a cultural partner of the New European Bauhaus of the European Union. At the same time, we virtualized the building of the Stadtbad and expanded it into an interactive place of remembrance in 2022 with a focus on barrier-free inclusion of the population. With interactive tools for individual storage of multimedia, personal memories in the virtual bathroom. Analogue and digital place do not face each other as a pair of opposites, but form a whole. Technologies are not an end in themselves, but serve the content, structural and human self-determination and self-design of everyday reality through technologies. We need new, holistic, intuitive, reflective places where social beauty, new interfaces between society, art and science and barrier-free inclusion of the population are possible. It is precisely this barrier-free society, which encompasses all social classes, that is included in the development of the Stadtbad into an art forum. At the same time, the city of Brandenburg is located in the growing metropolitan region of Berlin and attracts an urban, international audience. There is no future without a past. We need the preservation and careful transformation of origins towards a contemporary and future cultural identity.
Identity
Transformation
Human Being
Technoligy
Emotion
In terms of sustainable, conceptual project development and implementation, the focus was on the following sustainability aspects: social sustainability, emotional sustainability, technological sustainability and meaningfulness as well as architectural sustainability.
Social sustainability: We cannot shape the future without including the past in the transformation processes and seeing it as a foundation. With the Bauhaus Stadtbad and the virtual twin VIRTUAL BATHING, we have created a hybrid place where the population can publicly present their memories and stories, whether private or at the turn of the century, in the virtual pool, independently of location and time.
Emotional sustainability: In the context of a rapidly changing world and social parameters, it is essential to pay attention to people's emotions and to give them time to experience changes together. With the virtual city pool, we reach out to people and enable them to actively transform their biographies and city history in a creative way.
Technological sustainability and meaningfulness: the ability and empowerment of the population to shape identity and history takes place through technological, digital tools. These are not an end in themselves, but are conceived and developed from the "end" to enable people to use barrier-free hand tools, even without prior technological knowledge. The technological development of the virtual city pool takes place with permanent self-questioning of the meaningfulness and with attention to resource-saving technological processes.
Architectural sustainability: All projects, concepts and activities served the goal of preserving the historic Bauhaus Stadtbad and developing it into an interdisciplinary art forum. We have achieved this.
The interdisciplinary, empathetic approach between art, society and science is exemplary.
From 1930-2000, the historic Bauhaus Stadtbad was a public, social healing place as part of a welfare forum. Generations have learned to swim there and associate personal and family memories and political turning points with the pool. This power of emotional aesthetics has flowed into all design and design processes. We know that we wanted to activate a maximally heterogeneous urban society - not a classic art and education audience. At the same time, the aesthetics of the Bauhaus, which can be impressively understood architecturally in the analog building, also permeates the digital-virtual process and the design of the virtual city pool VIRTUAL BATHING: the decisive factors are permeability and lighting, in accordance with the Bauhaus concepts. The design of the technological, interactive tools should be implemented as intuitively and openly as possible in the sense of learning by doing. The virtual modeling of the pool, the tub areas and the changing rooms was done with different aesthetics to create an exciting event and not boredom. We have managed to inspire even a much older urban society for the virtual city pool and to activate it to publish its multimedia memories in the form of photos, videos or text. Some of these people used a computer for the first time. At the same time, we have started to involve the works of artists, such as the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, directors, photographers, designers, architects and scientists, in order to further open up the transfer of knowledge to the professional levels and to stimulate an interdisciplinary exchange of activation.
the virtual city pool is, like the analog city pool, an experience, a joy, a place where memory, transformation in the now and vision unite.
The virtual city pool VIRTUAL BATHING is basically fully open and visitable independent of location and time. So the barriers are not entrance fees, the barriers are the infrastructural digital opportunities for participation such as internet access, computers and possibly social support. Since we are not dealing with a white cube with the historic Bauhaus Stadtbad, but with a building that creates identity for generations, digital accessibility plays an essential role. The easy accessibility is integrated in: design, simple language, various analogue and digital instructions and the individual requirement face to face. The activation of the population in the project cannot only be achieved digitally. People still want to be spoken to and looked at by people. This means that a great, digital design is not enough, it also needs real, analog events, meeting places, events where the virtual city pool is presented and individually explained. We rely extremely on the quality of the individual approach and education of each individual. This results in amazing dynamics when people feel valued, when digital, technological fears of the unknown are dismantled from person to person and a joyful technological design takes up space. We are also NOT planning any entry gates for the analog Stadtbad building, which is currently being renovated to protect its monuments, and the emerging STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg. because we want to enable a completely open house in which interdisciplinary, international arts can be reached and experienced by EVERYONE.
The basis of the STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg is the history of the building. The historic Bauhaus Stadtbad was a public bath and cleaning place from 1930-2000 as part of the welfare forum, with tub and sauna areas. Generations of the city's population and the entire region have gone swimming and bathing in the city pool and connect personal and social memories. This is of enormous value for the analog and digital transformation of the building. For the population, the Stadtbad is still YOUR Stadtbad. We are walking the transformational path from a swimming pool to an art forum together with the population. This also means that people who have never come into contact with contemporary arts and sciences can now experience arts in their Stadtbad and intuitively perceive and experience them. This creates an emotional connection and a common path. In the virtual city pool VIRTUAL BATHING we have modeled the pool in a real-virtual way, every tile can be seen precisely. With the help of interactive tools, we were now able to inspire the population to publicly file their personal Stadtbad stories in the form of photos, videos, illustrations and texts in the virtual pool, to exchange memories with other people and to inspire each other. Analogue and digital development processes merge and trigger each other. People come to the real Stadtbad, are stimulated there and then go to the virtual Stadtbad. Other people, on the other hand, first visit the virtual Stadtbad and then come to analogue events in the Stadtbad building. Former employees, lifeguards, swimming instructors and cashiers are also involved. This is an enormously positive result. Exemplary is the very serious empathy for the origin of the Stadtbad and its people, which not only flows into the transformation process, but also has a significant influence on it.
The conceptual approach of the STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg and the virtual Stadtbad VIRTUAL BATHING has been interdisciplinary from the start. Our aim is to include and address the whole of society and not to focus solely and linearly on the cultural-artistic environment. Accordingly, we act with extremely heterogeneous interest groups, partners, public and private actors. Based on the concept, the interests of the STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg and VIRTUAL BATHING are also broadly based. Interest groups from architecture, building culture, monument protection, urban and regional development, culture of remembrance, transformation management and of course from art and culture come together. As a special feature, the extensive involvement of society, which is interested in YOUR city pool, should be mentioned again. People with mental and physical disabilities are also involved. For us, this heterogeneous community of interests means a great deal of effort in terms of addressing and networking activities. Because every interest group first acts systemically with its usual parameters and communication methods. However, the aim is to develop a holistic language in which as many different groups as possible can be found. Language means linear communication, but also all projects and activities. We made sure that all projects were also interdisciplinary, for example letting the private entrepreneur work with an artist and a politician on topics related to the culture of remembrance. This creates completely new connecting nodes between parts of society that do not yet exist in this form. The radically heterogeneous and completely open approach to involving interest groups and partners is absolutely exemplary. This also applies to the complex, modular financing structures.
The conception, development, implementation and operation of VIRTUAL BATHING, the virtual STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg implements - starting from the conception of the analog Stadtbad and transformation into an art forum - complex disciplines, competences and sciences. However, it also involves the technological, digital-virtual levels and the associated challenges. The core disciplines are: virtual design and data management, design and communication, building culture and monument protection, knowledge transfer management, art and cultural history, urban and regional development, technological infrastructure and population analysis, psychology and culture of remembrance. Where does this multitude of competencies come from? Broad networks are available that have been developed over decades, regionally, nationally and internationally. These networks are in constant motion and renewal. They include individual actors, scientists and artists, they include collectives and associations and, an essential part, are universities and academies. Here, too, we work together with the regional academies, but also involve international academies. This creates a win-win situation for everyone involved at various levels. We offer those involved, professional actors, exciting platforms for cooperation on which knowledge transfer and new perspectives and interfaces develop. What is important is a permanent exchange on the quality and usefulness of the project, so that adjustments or radical changes can then be made. We form heterogeneous teams that take on specific topics and tasks, while the small teams exchange ideas with each other to avoid tunnel vision. The central topic is the change of perspective and the circulation of knowledge, leaving one's own experiences and areas of knowledge again and again, getting involved with new content - in which one is not a professional - and then returning to one's home area with richer knowledge and experience.
The aim and intention of VIRTUAL BATHING, the virtual city pool as a place of remembrance, art and laboratory, was a constantly evolving, modular structure from the very beginning. It was never the idea to carry out a single project, realize it successfully and then finish it. This means that the basic attitude is as a build-up, modular system. Against this background, the extremely positive outcomes and results can already be defined and the further development and expansion of the virtual city pool is underway. We saved the historic Bauhaus Stadtbad building from gutting and housing construction. the building will be refurbished as a monument. We have completely virtualized the city pool and, together with the city's population, have developed the virtual pool into a touching place of remembrance and storytelling. We have also virtualized the cloakroom and bath areas and provided interactive structures and tools to offer international artists networking opportunities and art presentation platforms. We have developed a broad partner structure that relates to city, statewide and statewide levels. we have installed a successful funding system, through which interdisciplinary cultural projects as well as encounter projects are now being implemented. We have reopened the Stadtbad for the population and thus released a true place of encounter, identity, memory and future for transformation. We include people with mental and physical disabilities in the projects as well as refugees. We would also like to emphasize the 85% female team structure of the Stadtbad. The sustainable symbiosis of analogue and virtual building was successfully mediated and communicated, so that the population was relieved of technological fears and movement and joint, cultural and social design are possible.
The core innovation can best be described in two characteristic tandems, each of which is meant and realized in the context of the analog and digital STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg in their polar union:
1. Memory and Futurism
2. Analog and Virtual
Without memory and the resulting identity on the timeline, there can be no optimistic future. We don't see the past as done and irrelevant, but see it as why we live the way we live on the planet today. We anchor ourselves in history and then span an extreme arc over the now, which we can shape within our lifetime, in order to be the past itself in the future, which has massively shaped the future. These are not theoretical arguments, but can be found in all projects and implementation structures.
Likewise, we absolutely do not want to see the analogue and the digital world as pairs of opposites, but - of course also unavoidably - create a reality that people can understand, experience and feel. For this reason, we designed the virtual pool first and foremost as a place of remembrance, together with the population. This is the substrate on which we now move further into the international and contemporary arts, the substrate on which we involve science and politics. Finally, we would like to focus on the rational heterogeneity of the analogue as well as the virtual STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg. Our social areas that are too separate are asked to act, communicate, work or simply spend a little time together with the help of analogue and digital aids. This may sound banal - but our time suffers from the fulfillment of the human needs of body, mind, intellect, emotion and communication.
The major project STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg implements all development methods. At the core are interdisciplinarity and transformation. The project pursues an interdisciplinary approach, which is pursued in terms of content through all projects, as well as structurally and personnel. The transformational methods are broadly anchored in the development of the Stadtbad building from a place of healing to an art forum, in the culture of remembrance - the development of memory to a contemporary identity and then to go into a common, visionary design-future process. Interidzsiplinarität and transformation are also the basis for the hybrid, technological connection of analog and virtual city pool. Overall, these processes are embedded in the idea of sustainability. Human, social, architectural, cultural, psychological and technological sustainability.
The transfer of knowledge and the mediation of the collected, complex experiences in the transformation of the STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg plays a central role. A lively transfer of knowledge to the population takes place immediately. This relates above all to technological training, knowledge of building culture and the confrontation with contemporary art. On a professional level, we have activated a significant transfer of knowledge into city and national politics. Because such complex developments represent a unique selling point and the levels of knowledge are so dense and complex that the resulting knowledge and its communication are essential for the success of the STADTBAD Kunstforum. Furthermore, we are regularly invited to conferences and podiums to talk about the processes, results, hurdles and challenges. We produce analogue and digital brochures, instructions, communication modules and concepts at regular intervals - each specifically for the relevant content and target groups.
There is no future without a past. The vision of the STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg is a content-related, analogue and virtual place. A place where knowledge transfer, emotional connection and physical-spiritual opportunities can grow. We are experiencing a rapidly changing world. We need the preservation and careful transformation of origins towards a contemporary and future cultural identity. We need places where the past, present and future interact and shape each other, through the population, artists, scientists in an international exchange. At the same time, precisely in this lack of clarity lies the great opportunity to rethink and test social and cultural structures and to develop new, interdisciplinary interfaces. the STADTBAD Kunstforum Brandenburg in an ideal place to stimulate people and technology in a laboratory sense. To ask questions freely and in a process-oriented manner and to empower people to shape their identity and the changing times individually in the interests of the community.
