WEBVTT 00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:11.280 Olafur Eliasson: The objects are not necessarily the  most interesting part about art. 00:01:12.480 --> 00:01:17.640 It is what the object does to me when I look at  it, or engage in it, that is actually interesting. 00:01:28.140 --> 00:01:33.000 You are somehow provoked  into a more negotiating role, 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:35.100 because you go like, "What am I looking at?" 00:01:37.860 --> 00:01:43.200 Then you are more likely to also inquire,  "Well what does looking actually mean, 00:01:43.200 --> 00:01:46.440 and why am I seeing things the way I'm seeing it?" 00:01:49.380 --> 00:01:54.900 Instead of questioning the object,  you are in fact questioning yourself. 00:01:57.960 --> 00:02:01.140 That I think is one of the  great things art can do. 00:02:01.680 --> 00:02:07.380 Art can somehow offer an opportunity,  to sort of, do some self-evaluation. 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:20.160 When I came to Berlin in the early 90's, the  art scene, it was still relatively small. 00:02:20.160 --> 00:02:24.120 It was cheap, easy to get a  studio, easy to meet friends. 00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:27.220 That created a lot of artistic activity. 00:02:30.480 --> 00:02:32.100 I was so impressed with the artists, 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:38.580 but I also realized I had to be as honest  they were to themself, I had to be to myself. 00:02:40.560 --> 00:02:44.100 That's why I said I'll just deal with  the tools that I have, and what I know. 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:50.940 I grew up in Denmark, and I spent a lot of  time in Iceland, where my parents are from. 00:02:52.682 --> 00:02:55.200 I would typically spend more  time in the countryside. 00:02:55.200 --> 00:02:58.723 I would just climb, and make small  dams in the rivers and so on ... 00:03:00.660 --> 00:03:03.660 It's not about me growing  up in a certain situation. 00:03:03.660 --> 00:03:06.360 It's really about you and what you can make of it. 00:03:10.540 --> 00:03:12.940 That's why I brought in working with ephemera, 00:03:13.063 --> 00:03:15.343 working with water, working  with temperature, and so on. 00:03:22.440 --> 00:03:27.300 It was not really about  romanticizing nature versus culture. 00:03:27.817 --> 00:03:30.000 It was just that these were the things I knew. 00:03:36.720 --> 00:03:43.380 I thought that a waterfall would offer a  dimensional quality to these enormous spaces, 00:03:43.380 --> 00:03:48.180 which would allow us to physically  relate to the city on a more human scale. 00:03:50.280 --> 00:03:52.800 It was about creating this sense of presence, 00:03:52.800 --> 00:03:54.000 in which you are welcome, 00:03:54.000 --> 00:03:57.150 and you could share it looking with  somebody else, and you know ... 00:03:57.150 --> 00:04:00.120 Creating that moment in it's own surreal way. 00:04:02.040 --> 00:04:04.320 Nature presented a great toolbox, 00:04:04.837 --> 00:04:09.960 which would offer a lot of spatial experiments  through which we could investigate each other. 00:04:21.572 --> 00:04:26.931 A lot of people still think that artists work in this kind of solitary position. 00:04:27.777 --> 00:04:29.460 And I actually don’t think that’s the case. 00:04:30.519 --> 00:04:35.547 Artists are incredibly interconnected in different networks. 00:04:38.340 --> 00:04:41.940 When I started my studio in Berlin,  for many years I did everything myself. 00:04:42.397 --> 00:04:47.037 I was lucky to realize that other  people are probably better at it. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:50.580 Caroline Eggel: When I started  in 2000, we were 3 people. 00:04:52.380 --> 00:04:54.300 Two years later, we were twenty, 00:04:54.900 --> 00:04:58.040 then continuously more people arrived. 00:04:59.123 --> 00:05:03.540 Eliasson: I really didn't want to get  specialized in a form, but more in content. 00:05:05.136 --> 00:05:09.120 The ambition was to prevent  us only working in one thing. 00:05:11.040 --> 00:05:14.460 For some 5, 6, 7, 8 years now,  we've been around ninety people. 00:05:16.140 --> 00:05:20.340 Broadly speaking, there's 3 teams  in the studio, one is craftsman, 00:05:20.340 --> 00:05:23.820 one is a research team, and  one is a team of architects. 00:05:26.100 --> 00:05:30.540 The fact that they would feel that it's worth  being a part of the team is incredibly inspiring. 00:06:02.285 --> 00:06:05.940 Eggel: It's always a collaborative  moment. No one here does anything alone. 00:06:07.140 --> 00:06:12.720 When starting a project together, we  think about what does he want to say, 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:16.020 or what is important to say in  these days, or at this moment? 00:06:23.603 --> 00:06:28.620 Eliasson: I've always been interested in, how  does one know that one is in a public space? 00:06:30.388 --> 00:06:32.400 Like the “Weather Project” ... I wanted to see, 00:06:32.400 --> 00:06:35.160 can I create a work of art  both inside and the outside? 00:06:37.380 --> 00:06:41.880 We play around a lot, and we do a lot  of things that are non-quantifiable. 00:06:42.495 --> 00:06:46.080 We experiment with artworks that  eventually does not turn into an artwork, 00:06:46.080 --> 00:06:49.380 because it turns out to be a lot less  interesting than I thought it would be. 00:06:49.380 --> 00:06:50.880 Sadly, it happens a lot. 00:06:51.960 --> 00:06:56.460 One of the important things, is that everybody  seems to have some kind of feeling of, 00:06:56.460 --> 00:06:57.720 why are we doing what we're doing. 00:07:01.500 --> 00:07:05.220 Anna Engberg-Pedersen: So ten years  ago, he'd be very focused in thinking 00:07:05.220 --> 00:07:08.280 about what artworks do in museums, 00:07:08.280 --> 00:07:10.320 and what museums do to artworks. 00:07:14.040 --> 00:07:16.860 He wanted to test art in public space. 00:07:18.180 --> 00:07:22.920 What does art do when you encounter  it in an un-prescribed way? 00:07:25.185 --> 00:07:28.320 Sebastian Behmann: My entering  into the studio offered Olafur 00:07:28.320 --> 00:07:34.080 the possibility to actually work in  public space, in a more significant way. 00:07:36.251 --> 00:07:41.160 The boring thing to me about art is if it's  only made for people who look at art anyway. 00:08:12.600 --> 00:08:17.640 He has strong opinions, but he's also very  open about how his thoughts get expressed. 00:08:18.300 --> 00:08:23.880 Not necessarily about that he likes this or that,  but it's about the potential of the material. 00:08:23.880 --> 00:08:25.920 It's the potential of a shape or space. 00:08:43.285 --> 00:08:46.980 We consider the bridge more as an  artwork than an architectural work. 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.300 The idea behind the bridge is that  you actually generate a space, 00:08:51.300 --> 00:08:54.540 rather than only the connection between two sides. 00:08:55.680 --> 00:08:59.160 We want to have a design  which is a lot more playful. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:05.580 The idea of crossing from one side to the  other, kind of jumping over little islands. 00:09:26.520 --> 00:09:30.420 Engberg-Pedersen: Most anyone among us, has experienced the power 00:09:30.420 --> 00:09:34.020 that an artwork has to create  some type of interior change. 00:09:34.800 --> 00:09:40.380 Something that motivates us ... makes us  go, "Wow, this made me think differently." 00:09:45.180 --> 00:09:46.740 Take “Ice Watch” for instance. 00:09:46.740 --> 00:09:52.646 We brought these twelve blocks of  Greenlandic ice to Copenhagen in 2014, 00:09:52.646 --> 00:09:56.246 to coincide with the publication  of the fifth climate report. 00:09:56.501 --> 00:09:58.885 Then again in 2015 in Paris. 00:10:05.458 --> 00:10:08.717 We wanted to  talk about climate change, and we thought, 00:10:08.717 --> 00:10:13.080 well what art does is that it affords  an immediate experience of something. 00:10:14.040 --> 00:10:18.660 What we lack today is an immediate  experience of what climate change means. 00:10:22.689 --> 00:10:26.760 Eliasson: I was finding a lot of satisfaction  in doing the “Ice Watch” project. 00:10:27.986 --> 00:10:33.900 This gave me confidence to start to operate more  on behalf of the cultural center in advocacy. 00:10:37.260 --> 00:10:42.300 Once I met with an engineer,  who's sort of a solar nerd. 00:10:44.478 --> 00:10:50.706 I, as an artist, I was interested in, how does  it feel to be able to harvest your own energy? 00:10:52.247 --> 00:10:55.860 You know, clearly his skills and  my skills must be usable together, 00:10:55.860 --> 00:10:58.140 and this is how we came up  with the “Little Sun” project. 00:11:00.257 --> 00:11:03.840 Felix Hallwachs: The idea that we were looking  at with “Little Sun,” is could we make something, 00:11:03.840 --> 00:11:07.920 which for us is a work of art  but, for someone here in Berlin, 00:11:07.920 --> 00:11:10.260 could be an advocacy tool for renewable energy, 00:11:11.100 --> 00:11:14.160 and for a child in Ethiopia, it could  maybe really be a life-changing thing. 00:11:15.960 --> 00:11:18.180 I don't think it's so much  a shift in Olafur's work, 00:11:18.180 --> 00:11:20.940 as it is an evolution, an expanding of the tools. 00:11:29.803 --> 00:11:35.460 Eliasson: I often thought about the studio not being a  place you step into to get away from the world, 00:11:36.075 --> 00:11:40.200 but a place through which you can have  a microscopic look at the world outside. 00:11:41.460 --> 00:11:45.660 On a good day, the studio is  almost like an amplifier of, 00:11:45.660 --> 00:11:49.465 this sort of, frequencies on  which the world is moving. 00:11:50.696 --> 00:11:54.120 Eggel: The goal was to do  something meaningful with art. 00:11:54.120 --> 00:11:56.500 To also go beyond art. 00:11:59.580 --> 00:12:01.920 Eliasson: What we are  interested in when making art, 00:12:01.920 --> 00:12:05.520 is to examine the organization of the world. 00:12:06.037 --> 00:12:09.240 Art doesn't stop where the real world starts. 00:12:11.580 --> 00:12:15.323 I really think we need to find  a way to create solutions, 00:12:15.323 --> 00:12:18.503 just like science has presented solutions to us. 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:23.460 Art, as a civic muscle,  actually has something to offer.