KARLSRUHE.- They entered the shop. The products on offer did nothing for them. They were interested instead in the spatial construction, which suspended all of the objects in the air.

Before long, they became aware of the tilted floor on which they stood. Tilted just enough, just enough inclination, so that it seems almost slanted. In pale blue. As the time passed gradually, or at least we must assume that it did so, there was a slight yet nonetheless noticeable change in the slope of the ground on which they found themselves, along with the relationship between their bodies and gravitation.

The result was a sudden leap, without the intervening space having been traversed, or the foam-like, fleeting, yet real experience of an unexpected change of direction. As though the vertical wanted to tell them something.

From this point onward, they stroll with this serum, which was won from this incident, on the temples through angles and circles. Which, when necessary, are rearranged and repositioned in relation to one another according to altered laws of attraction. Many of them tell of a special aroma that is sensed in the course of this process, provided the wind has just turned.

Since 2014, disguised by pseudonyms, they have roamed local as well as situative interspaces and gaps for joint intraventionist interventions. With the inclusion of social happenings, these may be, for example, installative, space-related, or medial in character, i.e. the radio or the preparation of meals.

For the exhibition at the Badischer Kunstverein, Heidi Herzig and Ben Öztat have broken with their individual positions in order to generate openings for synergies which also feel comfortable in a museal context. Converging now are the narrative and the formal, the stationary and the mobile, the dark and the radiant, the visible and the invisible. And then, at the point of their encounter: a kind of flickering.

Heidi Herzig (*1983) lives and works in Karlsruhe. She studied German language and literature and applied cultural studies at the University of Karlsruhe and media art and scenography at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design. In 2017, Herzig received the Prize of the Badischen Beamtenbank for her joint project “Auf der Reling – Spuren an einem Element” (On the railing – traces of an element).

Ben Öztat (*1981) lives and works in Karlsruhe. In 2001 – 2006, he studied at the State Academy of Fine Arts Karlsruhe. His works have been exhibited at the following exhibitions, among others: DRAWINGS (2017, Luis Leu Karlsruhe), Allerbeste Aussichten (2017, Kunstraum Alexander Bürkle, Freiburg), and TING (2016, Galerie Barbara Oberem, Bremen).