So my name is David
Molander, and I'm
a visual artist
working primarily
with photo and animated films.
And I'm really happy
to be here today.
And I'm going to talk to
you about one of my projects
that I've been doing and
perhaps show you really
fast a couple of seconds
of some other projects.
So this view that
you see on the screen
is something I saw three
years ago in 2013, a very
rainy November afternoon.
And I was standing on
top of this building
on top of a mountain
constructed out
of 15,000 destroyed buildings
all brought there by women.
And I was trying to
film this building
with a radio-controlled
camera drone
with a video camera on
while a couple of dogs
were running around my legs
belonging to the gang that
controls this area.
And that was a point
when I realized
that this is one of the
most important urban spaces
that really both
is a focal point,
but also mirroring
the city of Berlin
and its different changes.
And it tells a lot about
how we build the cities
that we live in and why.
So we are in the
forest of Grunewald.
That's a forest to the
southwest of Berlin.
And it was there before
the city was founded.
And it used to be a
place to grow food,
and a place to train
armies, and a place where
the citizens of Berlin
are walking their dogs
and having picnics these days.
And it's a pretty
beautiful area.
But what you don't think
about if you don't know it
when you're there is
that this mountain that
is Berlin's tallest mountain,
Teufelsberg, or the Devil's
Mountain, is constructed out
of the destroyed city of Berlin
from 1945 that was
bombed to pieces, mainly
by the Soviet artillery.
So what you see
here is the stairs
leading up to this place.
And the stairs are made
from pavement stones
from the old city of Berlin.
And this forest is also
rummaged by wild boars.
And every time I'm there, I met
a couple of them or heard them.
And it's always-- it
wakes you up a little bit.
And what they do is they
shovel around the dirt.
And the layer of
soil is pretty thin,
so you can see parts of
the different building
surface in different locations.
And I was also able to get some
footage from an excavation that
was testing the
poisons that comes out
of these old artillery pieces.
So you see a shaft
here where you can also
see how thin the layers of
soil is before you start
seeing the different buildings.
And all of this was actually put
on top of the military academy
designed by Albert Speer.
So that military academy is
still below this mountain.
And when you come
to the top, you
are greeted by
this radar station.
And it's actually an
American building.
And it was used to monitor the
Eastern Bloc during the Cold
War.
And when the wall came down,
the army just left pretty fast.
And today, it is a
place where a lot
of different creative
outlets are happening.
There's a lot of demolition,
but also a lot of street art.
There's film shoots,
rave parties.
People used to dump trash that
was expensive to get rid of.
And a lot of commercials
are recorded there.
And it used to be a
kind of a free zone
where you could go
and find a place that
was outside the regulations
of the city of Berlin.
And as you can
see, today there's
a lot of tourists that come
there to take photographs
and to look at the
different street art.
And it's a constant
stream of different images
and texts and artworks that
are appearing and commenting
on [INAUDIBLE] there.
And then they're painted
over, and something else
is showing up.
So every time you're there,
it's going to look different.
So it's a big, three-dimensional
canvas, basically.
And the thing is that this was
a place built for communication,
to gather signals
from the Eastern Bloc
and pass it on to Washington.
And I was showing this
project in Washington
when a guy afterwards
came up to me,
and he was a researcher at
the Air and Space Museum.
And he told me that
this building was really
built by the NSA
and by NASA as one
of the first nodes in the
ECHELON Project for satellite
communications.
And this is the
top dome, the way
it looked when I was
there to take photographs.
And what you hear is the sound
that I recorded in there.
And it's 19 seconds
reverb since they
removed the radar equipment.
So it's a place that
is interesting, also,
for sound engineers
and for musicians,
and also the tourists
that, as you can hear,
produce their own sounds
but also records it.
And all the tourists
document this place.
And I thought that was really
important to use the material
that you can also find
online and not just have
my images in this big image and
make use of the representation
that you can find
everywhere else.
And so what I did is I used some
materials from different blogs
and from photographic
inventories
that you can find online.
There's plenty of these websites
where you can pan around
your own axis.
So in this case, I could find a
360-degree view of the top dome
before it was
whitewashed, as you
can see here in this version.
So I don't mind using
other people's images
if it, in this case,
suits my purposes.
And I also left some of
the artifacts from that.
As you can see here, it's from
one of the panoramic sites
with the different controls.
So I basically just
took screenshots.
And one point, I was going
to erase these traces.
But then I thought that I
might as well leave them
in since this is such
a fragmented image,
and it's pretty obvious
that this is not
a photographic
sketch of this space.
People have been asking me
if I made this structure.
And some are like,
yeah, it's funny
that you made this
phallic structure
on top of the mountain.
But this is actually
how it looks.
But the thing is, I could
select what I want to choose.
So what I do is I come to
a place and I research it.
I spend a lot of time there.
I go back in different seasons
and in different locations,
and I speak to people that
use the place sometimes.
And I go into a space
like this and start
scanning the walls
with photographs
and also recording
film clips and sound.
So this is nothing
I built myself.
This is a representation
of how this floor looked,
even though it would
be covered by a wall.
So I can select what
layers I want to choose.
And in this case, I
wanted to put focus
on these elements that are
very similar in structure,
but at the same time, they're
painted by different artists
and a multitude of artists.
So I just wanted to show the
different floors in this case.
And as you can see,
there's also a lot
of horizontal lines
in the background.
So it's very artificial,
but from my viewpoint,
it's also very documentary.
And all of this was shot
in the same autumn day,
because I thought the
colors worked best for that.
And this is a place
that I find pretty.
There's a lot of irony
to it, because it
used to be a place
built for communication.
But the only functioning piece
of equipment that the American
Army left that still
works today are
these two industrial-sized
paper shredders.
And they can still be used.
And this is the sound
that I managed from them.
And they can still
shoe up documents
into a kind of paper foam.
And the buildings are covered
by this bulletproof glass
that someone has been
writing things on,
and then someone else
has smashed the glass.
So I found this link also
between this paper foam in here
that's destroyed
documents, but also
the glass that's been
destroyed with the texts on.
So this is a
standalone piece that's
made with a frame of the
bulletproof glass that covers
these two paper shredders.
And sometimes, they use
them for confetti machines
for the rave parties
that they have out there.
And when I was there,
there are caretakers
of this place that charge
tourists to come in.
Because there's not really
adjusted for tourists,
so you're escorted by
guards when you come in.
And you have to pay.
And you have to follow
a specific path,
because there's no
ledges, and there's really
holes in different places where
you can fall down five floors,
and there's asbestos.
So they're there to
protect you in some way.
And it's cheaper for
the city of Berlin
to have these guys that
also live in this area.
The last time I was there, they
had built houses in the trees
also where they lived.
And it's cheaper for the city
of Berlin, that's pretty poor,
to have these guys
controlling the area
and charging and
protecting tourists
than to have a private guard
company or something like that.
Just a little side
note-- they also
wanted to build luxury condos.
And it's hard to make out
here on the projected screen,
but it says Resort
Teufelsberg here.
But it was something
that was never realized.
And also, the filmmaker
and artist David Lynch
started building a
spiritual center here.
But I'm going to show you a
little film clip from my camera
drone footage here.
So the people that are in
control of this place really
wanted me-- when I came
there, I had a camera drone,
and I realized that I couldn't
afford paying the kind of price
that you would do if you were
a production company that's
going to make a commercial.
So I had to ask them if I
could use my camera drone.
And they started
making phone calls.
And in the end, I
could talk to a guy who
was highest in command there.
And he immediately said
perfect, we need that,
so I'm going to come over.
And he came with a
car 20 minutes later.
And me and my sound guy were
there for the entire afternoon
and had to go to their
apartment in [INAUDIBLE]
to download the footage
in the end of the night.
But they also drove us around
and gave us access everywhere.
Because mainly, they
wanted us to film
this huge QR code that
you can see up here.
And the reason for
that is because when
you fly in over Berlin, you
see that-- you see Teufelsberg.
It's very flat.
And you can access their website
if you use your cell phone.
So I saw that as--
I work with layers.
I go into a place physically.
I take photos in layers.
I work in Photoshop and
After Effects with layers.
And I also work with historical
and conceptual layers
in the sense that this
place, Grunewald, was
there before the
city of Berlin, then
this mountain from
the Second World
War, the structure
from the Cold War
that's also evolved
as the city of Berlin
when it was an open, free
zone, and then commercialized
with the different
developments, and then
also taking over by
different creative forces,
but now in the end, also a
highly commercialized space
for this big QR code as
a symbol on the roof.
And this zoomable image
is from my website,
so it's something you can
access if you have Wi-Fi.
So I always try to make
my works into that.
And I also want to show
you how I present my works.
So let's see if I
can do that here.
Because to a large
extent, I work mostly
in the computer digitally, even
though I'm out in the field
to some extent.
But then I work a lot
digitally, but I also
work a lot with the
presentation of the works.
So in this case,
this is an exhibition
I made in a paint
factory in Stockholm.
And I also always
take film clips.
I work with VideoWorks.
And on this very uneven wall,
I projected a moving piece
from the same material as
you just saw at Teufelsberg.
So I'm going to scooch ahead
here so you can see it.
So this is a projection
made with four projectors,
and it's probably 120 feet
or something like that.
And I'm just filming this
with my cell phone camera
here, just to show you a
very simple animated piece
on this wall with covered
windows that also breaks
up the image, as you can see.
And I made this
into a book format
and into the large
zoomable and panable image
that I have online.
So I try to also work a
lot with presentation.
So just very, very
briefly, because I'm
coming to the end
of my presentation
for this time around,
this is another piece
that I made about the
city center in Stockholm,
a highly controversial place
that they're now tearing down
in the first example
of Swedish modernist.
You can see this on my website.
And I could talk probably
for about two hours
about this piece, but I'm not
going to do that right now.
This is another piece
from New York-- Lower East
Side when they were
rebuilding the street
and popped a water hydrant
at the middle of the night.
So the entire place was flooded.
I also have this
as a moving piece.
And you can see it at
the Kennedy School.
They have the piece
on the wall there.
This is another
about five points
that used to be in Queens, this
building that they whitewashed.
And it used to be the
most historical building
for graffiti in the world.
So I'm going to conclude
there and say that I'm here
to learn from and
with this institution
and to work with the material
that emanates from the GSD.
And I'm really going
to start pretty soon.
In the end of
September, I'm going
to do a workshop with students.
We're going to start
mapping this building.
But I'm also very interested
in all the materials
that you work with and
to be a part of that.
So I look forward
to have an exchange
and to engage with as
many as you as possible.
And I'm very interested in
different ideas and projects
that are going on here,
and to hopefully make
a cople-- or at least some--
artworks during my year here.
Thank you so much for listening.
