In our current times of climate crisis and energy crisis, artist Pablo Wendel brings a new project for 2023 that seeks to bring art to audiences across Germany, in the shape of an old red fire engine – Super Duty – using only discarded wood to do so.
A former American fire engine, built in 1968 in the United States, has been transformed by the interdisciplinary Kunststrom laboratory: instead of putting out fires, SUPER DUTY will supply cultural events and institutions with Kunststrom – CO2-neutral energy generated from works of art. Today, a controlled fire burns in the vehicle, which generates wood gas based on a pyrolysis process and thus powers the existing combustion engine. In this way, SUPER DUTY runs on waste wood and without gasoline or fossil fuels and produces electricity and heat for multi-storey buildings. The inaugural journey is a prototype with more journeys to be announced for 2024.
Artist Pablo Wendel, co-director of E-WERK Luckenwalde, has been creating projects using Kunststrom (electricity which is produced through artworks or artistic methods) since 2012. 2023 sees his most mobile and one of the most ambitious projects to date, reaching the largest nationwide audience. Wendel will tour Germany in the vehicle, starting in Luckenwalde, Brandenburg and heading to Lausitz, across the Thuringian Forest and ending in the Swabian Alps, making a journey of over 1000km through regions of Germany that are traditionally culturally forgotten, on quiet roads, via the Auto-Bahn, and through towns, villages and the countryside.
The first tour will take place from December 4th to 10th, beginning in Brandenburg at E-WERK Luckenwalde. In Baden-Württemberg, the vehicle and sculpture will dock at various cultural and educational institutions and supply regular museum operations with CO2-neutral electricity produced on site.
The CO2-neutral vehicle – named Super Duty – is able to hold a full tank of wood chips to travel 500km before it needs to be filled up once more. Whenever the tank light comes on it can be filled back up with residual wood. Then either wood has to be collected or the population has to be asked for fuel – waste wood: chairs, tables, maybe an old garden fence, the objects are processed into wood chips with the shredder. Each time a small tree sapling is planted as a symbol of taking and giving.
During the tour, the main location of SUPER DUTY will be in front of the Pylonia sculpture in the Wagenhallen, Innerer Nordbahnhof 1, 70191 Stuttgart. Write to the press officer nj@nicolajeffs.com or the project manager florinelindner@kunststrom.com to arrange an appointment during the tour and to be informed about the planned routes. To find out the live location, call 017655383709. There will be a SUPER DUTY energy feed-in Wagenhallen at the Pylonia sculpture on Thursday, December 7 at 2 p.m. (please register)
The vehicle has been repurposed by Wendel to control fire to generate wood gas on the basis of a pyrolysis process and drives the existing combustion engine in the vehicle so that it can run without fossil fuels. As well as raising awareness of climate issues and renewable energy as it travels, Super Duty acts as a pandemic-friendly stage outdoors and, thanks to its technical autonomy, offers the possibility of showing installations and performing arts in surroundings far away from the established arts and culture centres and cities.
In 2012, Wendel founded the artistic enterprise and practice Performance Electrics, which operates as an electricity supplier producing and distributing Kunststrom (electricity which is produced through artworks or artistic methods). In 2019, Wendel, with co-Artistic Director Helen Turner launched E-WERK Luckenwalde, in Brandenburg, a former GDR-era brown coal power station reimagined as a cultural institution, producing and distributing Kunststrom to the German National Grid as well using it to power the centre’s own artistic programme. Super Duty has been built and developed both in Stuttgart and at E-WERK Luckenwalde over the past year and in response to multiple lockdowns and pandemic circumstances.
Super Duty acts in many ways as a mobile power station – it can supply multi-storey houses with electricity and 200 kWh of heat by connecting to an electricity network. The team will demonstrate this at educational institutions in order to create sensitivity for functional and ecological alternatives and tree planting campaigns are also planned.
The project also marks 10 years of Performance Electrics and a renewed drive to encourage citizens across Germany to sign up to Kunststrom for their own homes.
Pablo Wendel said,
In 2012 I founded Performance Electrics, and in 2019 we founded the ‘hq’ of Kunststrom, E-WERK Luckenwalde, powering our own institution as well as public and private buildings across the country with renewable energy. The next logical step, to me, is to take Kunstsrom on the road, to people across Germany, giving those in our society the opportunity to exchange ideas about alternative forms of mobility, power and artistic practice in their own local communities and civic settings. We are looking forward to taking Super Duty on the road, and offering people the opportunity to switch to Kunststrom during our visits.
Super Duty is supported by Innovation Fund for the Arts, Ministry of Science, Research and Arts Baden-Württemberg, Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), E.ON Stiftung, Spanner Re2 and LKW Werkstatt Stephan Hampel.
