Canned Heat "Das kleinste Birnendenkmal Europas"

No, this is not about these guys...






Rather about something with a less blue-sy content...

or if you will...

[Seemingly the same idea has occurred to different creators...
The ones covered here claim to be first and to have been copied, as per comment! Some more about the "Lichtkonserve" canning of light bulbs will follow.
Update: See "Whatever You Can, We Can Too"...]


The Heatball satirical objection to the bulb ban has been well covered in previous posts, and is still ongoing through all the legal challenges and appeals.
Meanwhile another satirical artistic venture has been going on for some years, although recently halted, again for legal reasons (the ones without humor are the German judges, but in that profession they are not alone!).
This is about the Frankfurt based Canned Heat venture, or rather Kultur-Reserve, culture reserve, by the Metermorphosen company: a word play on "metamorphosis",
as they focus on creating new artistic meaning out of everyday objects.


Their own description of their activities: Google translation, somewhat corrected...

MeterMorphosen stands, as already seen in the name, for transformed everyday objects.
We develop our own product ideas, check their feasibility, and then produce them with the most suitable materials. The transformations are more than just a gimmick, they give the items a palpable new dimension. Thus a yardstick measure of space became a measure of time and space. Or from the linoleum floor a memory card game was made, with original artwork from the 1920s. And from the world's most widely used eating utensils a small collection of poems, with which you can combine the sensuality of eating with the sensuality of poetry.
Important for MeterMorphosen is a playfully educative approach, the products must have a certain esprit, the abstract becoming sensually comprehensible. By such lateral thinking our products may succeed to make complex inter-relations more clear and able to be seen in a new way.

They also have an English language presentation of themselves...




While the canned bulb manufacture and sales have been organized by publisher Florian Koch and partners, the concept and also apparently the original manufacture was by artist Lutz Jahnke in Offenbach.

There seem to be slightly conflicting accounts about it, but the story seems to go something like this...
During the lighting festival Luminale in Offenbach April 2010, Lutz Jahnke and his partner Julia Diehl organized a big "Birnen Denkmal" light bulb memorial to incandescent light bulbs:
Public collections of spent bulbs took place and mounds of them were artistically arranged by Lutz, Julia and others.
Seemingly now in 2012 there are plans for some kind of repeat offering - the original idea and further development will be covered in a following blog post.

Having got access to sausage making /canning machines the idea then came to Jahnke
about extending the memorial idea... "after the biggest light bulb memorial in Germany, the smallest light bulb memorial in Europe!".
A "culture reserve", not really supposed to be opened, an artistically produced memory of today's bulbs for the future.

Lutz had several lines of thought behind it...
Birne = Pear = what former German leader Chancellor Kohl was called, also the classic bulb in cartoons being synonymous with a "bright idea", also historically the bulb reaching back a long time, given the action as a kind of memorial, while also symbolizing a resistance to government interference in personal freedom, the "last ration" aspect of putting it in a can, as in survival shelters...

So he started putting the bulbs into cans, somewhere along the line getting
help with the manufacture and distribution by the Metamorphoses company in Frankfurt.


Op-Online 10/4/2012 article about artist Lutz and the canned bulb development:
[or see Google translated English version]

The presentation of it as a product for sale:
[or see Google translated English version]

The site however also now warns
"The culture reserve product is until further notice not deliverable and can not be ordered from the online shop".....



The canned bulbs become banned

In recent months, the venture has again got media coverage in Germany.
14th July article from the Frankfurter Runsdschau paper, translated.

A fuller account from the 25th July, 2012, also from artist Lutz Jahnke's point of view
op-online website, translated.

As can be seen, the sale is now forbidden under threat of a 2000 Euro fine for a first offence (somewhat like drug dealing), the argument being that such 60W bulbs were banned from manufacture Sep 2011.
Lutz and company manager Koch - reasonably enough - feel they were really only packaging and distruibuting already made bulbs. The bulbs came first from German, then from French manufacturers, before the ban.
In the EU, like in the USA, the legislation is of not allowing further manufacture within the jurisdiction, or import from outside, of the light bulbs - neither of which apply here.
Florian Koch said that they may yet beat the new deadline of 1 Sep 2012 for 40W bulbs by filling cans with them instead... however, to date this seems not to have occured.

Videos:
Recent videos carry the same tale about the ban on the sale.
For example, July 24 2012, on the RTL Hessen site: mp4 file, featuring Florian Koch.

Another video from July, from the 25 minute point, featuring Lutz Jahnke, also describing how he got the idea after getting hold of a sausage machine.



Lutz's concluding thoughts from his Jahnke design site

01 september 2012:
glühbirnen — europaweit verboten
»nichts bewegt die welt mehr als licht — deshalb haben wir ihm ein denkmal für alle nostalgiger & ein mahnmal für alle die immer noch wahllos energie verschwenden, gewidmet.
die »kultur reserve« ist die antwort auf die faulen früchte der eurokratie. ein zeitgenössiches kunstwerk, das sie unbedingt in ihren besitz bringen müssen.«

01 september 2012:
incandescent bulbs - banned throughout europe
"nothing moves the world more than light - that's why we dedicated to it a monument for all with nostalgia and a memorial for all those who still (choose to) indiscriminately waste energy.
The "cultural reserve" is the answer to the bad fruits of the eurocracy, a contemporary artwork that they absolutely have to bring into their possession."