Superflex

(Bjoernstjerne Christiansen 1969, Jakob Fenger 1968, Rasmus Nielsen 1969. Live and work in Copenhagen)

Superflex is one of the most important artistic groups of the contemporary panorama. It originated from a central nucleus of three Danish artists - Bjoestjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger, Rasmus Nielsen - who from time to time make use of the collaboration of various international specialists for the development and expansion of each project having a social connotation. What truly characterises Superflex from its origin in 1993 is a principle of 'radical democracy' which the three members pursue through various strategies of participation and alternative functional models that respond to precise needs of the social life. All of Superflex's projects are viewed by the same authors like 'tools' that allow the development of activities, the triggering of processes and therefore become meaningful only when they are utilised by real users. Their character consists in self-organisation, economical resource, public forum and social service.
An example is the prototype of a functional bio gas unit- carried out in 1997 with the collaboration of Danish and African engineers - which was the first project that made them famous in the international art network and since then they have been always present in all major museums and main exhibitions: from the Berlin Biennale (2001), to the itinerant exhibit 'Cities on the Move' (2000), from the Gwangju Biennale (2002) to 'Democracy' (RCA, London 2000).
What does the 'bio gas' project consist in? Based on the demand of a contemporary African user, the bio gas system, destined to Tanzania, is a simple, portable unit which can produce sufficient gas for the domestic needs of one family and operates by transforming organic trash into gas.
Other projects such as the Superchannel one influence the media system directly through the constitution of a network of local TV studios and the creation of new channels (from Copenhagen to Liverpool) which can produce a series of interactive TV programmes on the internet.
Superchannel is therefore an internet channel whose aim is to collect ideas, proposals, opinions from the audience and to compare these in public discussions where even the single spectator can intervene directly.
However, what emerges from the various projects is the idea of the contemporary city, for example the Wolfsburg and Karlskrona 1 and Karlskrona 2 one. These are perfect digital copies of cities that can be accessed by the citizens on the internet and are capable of producing a virtual version of real cities and the real social relationships. The difference consists in the fact that the replica of the city is a free space in which the functions of the buildings, as well as the social hierarchies, the legal and economic systems can be redefined. It is up to the citizens to produce a digital representation of the possible changes, of the ways in which new communities can be conceived, of the alternative relationships through which the contemporary city can be imagined.