2016  Installation
Korkskulpturen, Tisch, Deckenelement mit Scheinwerfern
180 × 180 × 240cm

When we showed the installation Subtraction One for the first time, we realised that it functions as a “Conversation Piece.” On a black squared table there are a collection of cork objects that Clara and Karl worked on over a period of roughly a year.

Visitors who didn’t know that they were made by the parrots were especially interested in their aesthetic appeal and that of their particular materiality. With the knowledge of interspecies collaboration, questions of process and the conditions of creation came into play: How do the birds do it and is something they do instinctively? Is it fun for them or are they forced to do it? Are they rewarded for it? Are Clara and Karl attached to their objects? What are they thinking about them being shown? And who decides when the piece is finished?

Fundamental questions that they probably would never have asked us as a human artist couple, but provoked intense conversations about issues like the balance of power or the effects of rewards which are not only related to interspecies art.