An art project in public space. By Franz Wassermann in collaboration with HIV positive tested people and AIDS patients.

communication

Project description

For the project "Barbie and Ken are HIV positive" the Austrian artist Franz Wassermann directly collaborates with HIV positive tested people and AIDS patients who supplied him with 2400 objects they use in their daily lives (pens, lighters, money etc.). These objects are sealed into transparent plastic and labelled with "imperatives of attention": hold me, love me, hit me ... These "files" are then marked with a green dot (most hospitals use green dots to mark the AIDS patients' files) and collected in folders. The development of the project, the negotiations with sponsors and their reactions are continuously documented in the Internet (World Wide Web) and will be published in a catalog.

"Barbie and Ken are HIV positive." The archetypal couple of postmodern society as it is defined by our desire-producing industries is infected with the lethal virus. This statement starts a thought-process that illuminates the relationship between the isolation of HIV positive tested people/people suffering from AIDS and the reluctance of the "others" to become involved with them. It is a process that displays the facts. Death is a transformer.

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