Futurama Lab / Rainer Prohaska: The Aesthetic of Labour

Documentation of the project:

Rainer Prohaska/FUTURAMA°LAB: The Aesthetic of Labour
Tue 11.06., 17 – 21h
12.06. bis 18.06, 15 – 19h
Tue 18.06., 19h: Artist Talk and Closing Party
throughout the MQ

Rainer Prohaska, artist and founder of Futurama Lab, will be present over a period of ten days with his team and with the involvement of visitors with a sculpture performance in the MuseumsQuartier area. Several hundred pieces of standardized VT20 formwork beams from the construction industry will be repeatedly rearranged, stacked, layered, assembled and dismantled by the participants for the duration of the action. The sculptural arrangement is constantly changing. The yellow wooden elements each have a length of 245 cm and are moved without the aid of electrical devices. Carrying, lifting, placing and securing are carried out as collaborative activities and give rise to various sculptural figures. What is essential in this artistic action is not a definitive form, but the experiment, the work process and cooperation.

Sustainable practice plays a central role in this project, both in terms of the content of the artwork and in its production. In order to avoid the consumption and subsequent recycling or disposal of materials for the work, all components come from a material pool, which will be returned to it after the project. The non-profit organization "FUTURAMA LAB - Art & Science for Ecological Transformations", founded by Rainer Prohaska in 2022, deals artistically and scientifically with sustainable and regenerative projects and works in an artistic context.

After a week of travelling through the entire MQ area, the mobile sculpture arrives back at the Summer Stage. Chief curator Verena Kaspar-Eisert talks to Rainer Prohaska about the project.

Photo: © Rainer Prohaska, Bildrecht Wien, 2024