Apollo Amerika
Ferdinand Kriwet
1969
Apollo Amerika
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Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) was a German conceptual artist best known for his multimedia works combining radio, television, and print. In the 1960s, he coined the concept of “Hörtext” (literally, “text to be listened to”) and ...
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Apollo Amerika
Ferdinand Kriwet
1969
Frankfurt: Edition Suhrkamp
Unpaginated [160 pages]
17.7 × 10.8 cm

Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) was a German conceptual artist best known for his multimedia works combining radio, television, and print. In the 1960s, he coined the concept of “Hörtext” (literally, “text to be listened to”) and produced 16 sound pieces for German public radio, composed from edited sound bites taken from international mass-media broadcasts. Halfway between sound installation and podcast, these acoustic montages imagined what a global radio station might sound like.


 


The international media frenzy surrounding the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969 prompted Kriwet to explore more visual forms of expression. He went to a travel agency in Düsseldorf, bought two plane tickets to New York, and flew out with an assistant and three stereo tape recorders. In the city, he rented a hotel room, set up multiple television sets, and recorded thousands of metres of audio and 16mm film footage, from take-off to landing, as material for his multimedia project.


 


He produced Apollovision, an experimental 16mm documentary and sound-picture collage in motion, alongside the present publication, Apollo Amerika, a press diary documenting the collective euphoria and sensationalism surrounding the event. Rather than reporting on the lunar landing itself, the work captures the overwhelming and continuous flow of the American mass-media landscape, bringing together advertisements, football games, and patriotic broadcast patter. Newspaper articles, travel documents, photographs, sounds, advertisements, illustrations, diagrams, collages, radio transmissions, and television footage stills are bound together in this expansive volume, which unfolds as a monumental work of concrete poetry.


 


Apollovision and Apollo Amerika are often presented together. In 2011, art historian Gregor Jansen curated a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Kriwet at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Titled Kriwet – yesterday ’n’ today, it was the first retrospective devoted to the artist.

Frankfurt: Edition Suhrkamp
Unpaginated [160 pages]
17.7 × 10.8 cm

Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) was a German conceptual artist best known for his multimedia works combining radio, television, and print. In the 1960s, he coined the concept of “Hörtext” (literally, “text to be listened to”) and produced 16 sound pieces for German public radio, composed from edited sound bites taken from international mass-media broadcasts. Halfway between sound installation and podcast, these acoustic montages imagined what a global radio station might sound like.

 

The international media frenzy surrounding the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969 prompted Kriwet to explore more visual forms of expression. He went to a travel agency in Düsseldorf, bought two plane tickets to New York, and flew out with an assistant and three stereo tape recorders. In the city, he rented a hotel room, set up multiple television sets, and recorded thousands of metres of audio and 16mm film footage, from take-off to landing, as material for his multimedia project.

 

He produced Apollovision, an experimental 16mm documentary and sound-picture collage in motion, alongside the present publication, Apollo Amerika, a press diary documenting the collective euphoria and sensationalism surrounding the event. Rather than reporting on the lunar landing itself, the work captures the overwhelming and continuous flow of the American mass-media landscape, bringing together advertisements, football games, and patriotic broadcast patter. Newspaper articles, travel documents, photographs, sounds, advertisements, illustrations, diagrams, collages, radio transmissions, and television footage stills are bound together in this expansive volume, which unfolds as a monumental work of concrete poetry.

 

Apollovision and Apollo Amerika are often presented together. In 2011, art historian Gregor Jansen curated a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Kriwet at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Titled Kriwet – yesterday ’n’ today, it was the first retrospective devoted to the artist.

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Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) was a German conceptual artist best known for his multimedia works combining radio, television, and print. In the 1960s, he coined the concept of “Hörtext” (literally, “text to be listened to”) and produced 16 sound pieces for German public radio, composed from edited sound bites taken from international mass-media broadcasts. Halfway between sound installation and podcast, these acoustic montages imagined what a global radio station might sound like.

 

The international media frenzy surrounding the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969 prompted Kriwet to explore more visual forms of expression. He went to a travel agency in Düsseldorf, bought two plane tickets to New York, and flew out with an assistant and three stereo tape recorders. In the city, he rented a hotel room, set up multiple television sets, and recorded thousands of metres of audio and 16mm film footage, from take-off to landing, as material for his multimedia project.

 

He produced Apollovision, an experimental 16mm documentary and sound-picture collage in motion, alongside the present publication, Apollo Amerika, a press diary documenting the collective euphoria and sensationalism surrounding the event. Rather than reporting on the lunar landing itself, the work captures the overwhelming and continuous flow of the American mass-media landscape, bringing together advertisements, football games, and patriotic broadcast patter. Newspaper articles, travel documents, photographs, sounds, advertisements, illustrations, diagrams, collages, radio transmissions, and television footage stills are bound together in this expansive volume, which unfolds as a monumental work of concrete poetry.

 

Apollovision and Apollo Amerika are often presented together. In 2011, art historian Gregor Jansen curated a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Kriwet at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Titled Kriwet – yesterday ’n’ today, it was the first retrospective devoted to the artist.

Frankfurt: Edition Suhrkamp
Unpaginated [160 pages]
17.7 × 10.8 cm

Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) was a German conceptual artist best known for his multimedia works combining radio, television, and print. In the 1960s, he coined the concept of “Hörtext” (literally, “text to be listened to”) and produced 16 sound pieces for German public radio, composed from edited sound bites taken from international mass-media broadcasts. Halfway between sound installation and podcast, these acoustic montages imagined what a global radio station might sound like.

 

The international media frenzy surrounding the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969 prompted Kriwet to explore more visual forms of expression. He went to a travel agency in Düsseldorf, bought two plane tickets to New York, and flew out with an assistant and three stereo tape recorders. In the city, he rented a hotel room, set up multiple television sets, and recorded thousands of metres of audio and 16mm film footage, from take-off to landing, as material for his multimedia project.

 

He produced Apollovision, an experimental 16mm documentary and sound-picture collage in motion, alongside the present publication, Apollo Amerika, a press diary documenting the collective euphoria and sensationalism surrounding the event. Rather than reporting on the lunar landing itself, the work captures the overwhelming and continuous flow of the American mass-media landscape, bringing together advertisements, football games, and patriotic broadcast patter. Newspaper articles, travel documents, photographs, sounds, advertisements, illustrations, diagrams, collages, radio transmissions, and television footage stills are bound together in this expansive volume, which unfolds as a monumental work of concrete poetry.

 

Apollovision and Apollo Amerika are often presented together. In 2011, art historian Gregor Jansen curated a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Kriwet at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Titled Kriwet – yesterday ’n’ today, it was the first retrospective devoted to the artist.

MORE BOOKS

Ferdinand Kriwet (1942–2018) was a German conceptual artist best known for his multimedia works combining radio, television, and print. In the 1960s, he coined the concept of “Hörtext” (literally, “text to be listened to”) and produced 16 sound pieces for German public radio, composed from edited sound bites taken from international mass-media broadcasts. Halfway between sound installation and podcast, these acoustic montages imagined what a global radio station might sound like.

 

The international media frenzy surrounding the launch of Apollo 11 in 1969 prompted Kriwet to explore more visual forms of expression. He went to a travel agency in Düsseldorf, bought two plane tickets to New York, and flew out with an assistant and three stereo tape recorders. In the city, he rented a hotel room, set up multiple television sets, and recorded thousands of metres of audio and 16mm film footage, from take-off to landing, as material for his multimedia project.

 

He produced Apollovision, an experimental 16mm documentary and sound-picture collage in motion, alongside the present publication, Apollo Amerika, a press diary documenting the collective euphoria and sensationalism surrounding the event. Rather than reporting on the lunar landing itself, the work captures the overwhelming and continuous flow of the American mass-media landscape, bringing together advertisements, football games, and patriotic broadcast patter. Newspaper articles, travel documents, photographs, sounds, advertisements, illustrations, diagrams, collages, radio transmissions, and television footage stills are bound together in this expansive volume, which unfolds as a monumental work of concrete poetry.

 

Apollovision and Apollo Amerika are often presented together. In 2011, art historian Gregor Jansen curated a large-scale exhibition dedicated to Kriwet at the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf. Titled Kriwet – yesterday ’n’ today, it was the first retrospective devoted to the artist.

MORE BOOKS