Meine Zuständigkeit hört auf, da wo der Strom kommt — Asimina Sideris

“Meine Zuständigkeit hört auf, da wo der Strom kommt” is an installation about tram overhead lines. It explores infrastructures in public spaces that are essential to our everyday lives but which we have learnt to ignore. It is intended to give these seemingly banal, anonymous functional structures a value and draw attention to them.

In a city with a lot of trams, like Karlsruhe, overhead lines are always present when you move along the street. Everything you see in public space is seen through the web of overhead lines. They are omnipresent and essential to everyday transport, however most people ignore them in their day to day lives. And this is no coincidence: the city requires overhead lines to be planned in such a way that they are as discreet as possible and blend into their surroundings. There is no appreciation of how much technology and material goes into getting a tram through the city.
The installation is intended to draw attention to this topic. This work and research has allowed me an immersive view of overhead lines, which I wanted to share and visualise through my installation.

In the installation “Meine Zuständigkeit hört auf, da wo der Strom kommt”, one stands and moves under the free-floating pattern of a large intersection in Karlsruhe, modelled on a scale of 1:26 using blue ropes. A stop motion video runs on the projection screen, showing everyday snapshots and views of the overhead lines in motion.
Sounds come from three different directions. Firstly, the sounds of the trains, which you could also listen to at a crossing, and then from the right and left, two different perspectives, from different people on the subject of overhead lines. One is the technical view of a person who works with overhead lines, and the other is mine, a more poetic view that I have gained of the visual level of the overhead lines. One side says that the overhead lines should be as subtle as possible in order not to attract attention, and the other says, look up, see what's hanging there.
With my installation I hope to draw people’s attention to the overhead lines that play such an important yet invisible role in our daily lives.