PICTOPIA
Berlin, Germany
2009
mit
Heike Pauketat, Manuel Rauwolf
commissioned by Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Pictoplasma
links: pictoplasma, HKW Pictopia
Festival of New Character Worlds
The explosion of character design at the beginning of the millennium changed visual culture distinctively. These graphically pared down and bright-eyed pictograms spread like wildfire across digital media, advertising, fashion and art. They playfully sample and remix the visual codes of pop, folklore, brand logos and comics, but resist being restricted to any one genre. By engaging the viewer on a direct emotional level they are able to bypass language and cultural barriers – but can abstract designs really be the answer to our Utopian dreams of global visual communication?
In spring 2009, the Haus der Kulturen der Welt hosted the PICTOPIA festival, the world’s first ever large-scale presentation and celebration of the phenomenon. In March and April, this multidisciplinary event location was transformed into a character biotope and a meeting point for an international scene of designers, artists, producers and an interested public.
(text from webpage of HKW)
model view of the exhibition space. entering through stairs (at the top of the model), the space opens to it’s own public space marked by the portals and inhabited by the character-auto-scoooter.
