M HKA Ensembles

Artist Novel, 12.7 x 20.4 cm, English, 342 pages, publisher : Nighboat Books, New York, ISBN: 97816436200.

Collection: Collection M HKA, Antwerp (Inv. no. B 2030/847).

Literary synopsis

Grabeland takes place in a country that no longer exists, in a culture rooted in soil and projections. The story tours the inner exiles of its characters as they test the limitations of their actual existence. Focusing on Germany and The United States, Grabeland dramatizes the formation of national identity and ultimately its dissolution through an accumulation of personal and collective experiences, anecdotes, accidents, propaganda, falsifications, histories, victimizations, inventions, dreams, and hopes.

Relation of the novel to the artist’s practice

Grabeland is based on the artistic strategy of buying pieces of land, site unseen on ebay, which eteam has used several times since 2001 as a starting point for process-driven, long term, collaborative projects. Like previous projects Grabeland was supposed to become a series of multi-media-installations, and in 2011 eteam developed the first iteration “When the dancing gets too stiff, the rain needs to get dug out as ice-cubes” a show at M29 in Cologne, Germany, which included a synchronized 5-channel video installation, a floor sculpture, several computer collages, a set of code calligraphy exercise books and computer drawings that utilized research materials and documentation from the early stages of the project. The remaining material needed other forms to actualize its content. Documenting, narrating and fictionalizing their projects in form of novellas and novels has become a natural extension of their essayistic video work, that often uses voice-overs. 

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