• pumping station

 

 

 

 

In the autumn of 2008 Marcin Dudek finished building an object of tangled, interconnected bicycle tyre inner-tubes. These twenty-three tubes inflate to form a single structure - a mobile artwork that intervenes with public space.

 

Dudek spent little over a month travelling around twenty-three European cities, inflating his object in rail stations, allowing passers-by to witness life being breathed into the rubber with a foot pump; a symbiotic relationship between artist, object and space.

National rail terminals are the entry and exit points for millions of travellers every day across Europe. These rail systems are often pushed to their limits, exampled across the board by over-populated carriages, rail workers striking, and unions debating absent pay rises and the pros and cons of privatisation. Some lines are stronger than others, some stations more comfortable than others, but all elements of this structured, interdependent system have their limits. Dudek’s object is a metaphor for these limits. It directly represents two notions: that of travel (bicycle inner-tubes) and that of the limits of Europe’s rail infrastructure (the varying strength bonds between these inner-tubes).

By repeatedly performing this act of inflation, or pressure upon the inner-tubes in a variety of locations, Dudek statements, albeit metaphorically, that the workers of these stations are not alone in their concern for the rail systems which they maintain – if one link fails, the entire functionality of the system is put at risk.
Every performance produces a different sculptural form. The object constantly re-invents itself, contradicting many of the rail systems it imitates.  As the passing of time goes on, represented by the station clocks in many of the photographs, this artwork begs the question: What is the limit of this pumping motion, both in terms of the objects life-span, and the rail networks it metaphorises?

 

Project was kindly supported by the Matt's Gallery London, and Juliet Gomberst Trust.

 

 

 

 

 

Pumping Station Polaroids

 

 

2008

series of 24 colour polaroids

each 10.8 x 8.8cm

 

 

The manipulation of the Polaroids quality (by using both out of date and new instant film) suggests a change in the perception’s state, which is stimulated by the transit. The Polaroid’s rapid development is the immediate manifesto of a time phenomenon. They capture the object in its diverse forms which represent, in absence, the creator.

 

 

 

 

 

London

Antwerpen

Liege

Düsseldorf

Hamburg

Berlin

Poznan

Warszawa

Krakow

Bratislava

Vienna

Budapest

Bucharest

Sofia

Istanbul

Thessaloniki

Athens

Patra

Bari

Ancona

Genova

Barcelona

Valencia

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Hamburg Landungsbrucke

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Bucuresti Gara de Nord

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Kraków Plaszów

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Kraków Plaszów

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Liege TGV

 

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Patra

 

 

 

 

 

2008, rubber, hand pump, dimensions variable, view in Istanbul Sirkeci

 

 

 

 

 

Intervention at Bucuresti Gara de Nord - video extract

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pumping Station Book

 

 

2009/ 11

14 x 12 cm

edition unlimited

116 not numbered pages

hard cover (unique)

 

 

I’ve decided to archive some of the excessive amount of visual material in the form of a handmade book.

It contained 116 full colour pages. The book fold binding allowed multiple ways of presentation as a conventional

flipbook and as an unfolded long strip. The linearity of it brings the viewer closer

to the chronology of the journey itself.

By using flexible binding, the book takes its reference from the elasticity of the Pumping Station object,

and equally responds to the environment it’s presented in.

 

In the book juxtaposition between documentation photographs and images downloaded from the Internet brings

together two types of voyage: the real one depicted in the Pumping Station journey and virtual, by browsing

through the Internet. By combining both realities inside the book, my intention is to create a sort of restrooms

for the viewer, an escape from closed systems of regulated and numbered railways car and hermetic

Google web search results.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Zine

 

 

2011

21 x 15 cm

edition of 20

21 not numbered pages

soft cover