U2 - Alexanderplatz Station. Berlin. July 2005
Award- winner of the annual competition held by the Neuen Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst (NGBK) Berlin
Annual topic for 2005: "Cleanliness, Service, Security"

For this work the outer rail of the two tracks running through the underground station was polished until it gleamed, so that it would stand apart from the other soot-blackened rail. In addition, the retaining nuts of the polished rail were covered with gold caps, in order to focus attention on the tracks. At the same time the gleam of both rail and caps should call up an image of cleanliness. In the public, cleanliness is commonly conceived as a guarantee and prerequisite for security. However, the artists were not interested in simply working along the motto proposed by the competition. Rather, the fact that inside the discourse of traffic systems the factors "cleanliness, service, security" continue to play a decisive role should be visualized.

As slogans and normative fixed points they suggest that man, travel comfort and security are more important than the optimization of purely technical courses. Yet these discourses merely conceal the fact that the further development of these systems only adheres to technological advance.

The actual "Work on the Tracks" was carried out by workers specially employed for this project and paid according to the standard wage. The greatest part of the expenses was accordingly used to cover the labour costs. This was done in order to put a special emphasis on the aspect of work.

The position claiming that the final remaining domains of life and art are currently being commodified and adjusted according to economic guidelines, is re-interpreted by the work in a positive way: A work of art does not have to respond to any demand. Rather, it may create work and thus generate demand.