Page 45 - Studio International - December 1970

Tube over

the Maschsee

Jeffrey Shaw
Theo Botschiuver

Tube over the Maschsee, Hannover, 29 and 30
August 1970 — an Eventstructure Research Group
project.
This project was realized for the `Strassenkunst-
Programm' (street art programme) of the City of
Hannover and the Hannover Kunstverein. The
air-inflated tube (made from part-transparent and
part-reinforced PVC) spanned across the lake from
one bank to the other—a length of 250 metres,
3 metres in diameter. The tube was ballasted with
a continuous water compartment, and anchored
every 4 metres to concrete blocks which had been
previously sunk in a line across the lake for the
purpose. The total cost of the project was £3500.
About four hundred people walked across the
Maschsee.
`This sculpture is the function—the walking across
the Maschsee.'
The Strassenkunst-Program of the City of Hannover
is organized by the director of the Hannover
Kunstverein—Manfred de la Motte—and began at
the end of August 1970 as a three-year programme
of art action in the unenclosed spaces of the city.
One million marks (about £100,000) will be spent
during the first year of this activity. As an art/
political decision this three-year project marks a
significant new scale of commitment to the role of
artist as 'general other agent' operating throughout
the social set-up.