Wish Visuals - You Pick It, We Play It


'Sonja Meller Sonja Meller

The object of this game is to intensify the communicative, social aspect of public space by temporarily laying claim to a space and imparting a design to it in a very unconventional way. The players—all 100–200 of them—are issued little flags of different colors; they then form a square on a slope of Schloßberg, a hill overlooking Linz. Pedestrians on the nearby Nibelungen Bridge or in the Urfahr neighborhood will be invited to call in requests for patterns they’d like to see on Schloßberg. Here, they can select from a preset menu of colors and symbols, or they can come up with their own motifs. The players on Schloßberg then jointly attempt to visually implement the image, choosing the appropriate colors and waving the corresponding flags. Viewers observing from afar can see how the image gradually takes shape. If the pattern appears too vague and the players need some fine-tuning, passers-by can issue their advice via cell phone. The image is formed using relatively simple means; nevertheless, it constitutes a complex construction in light of the required coordination of so many participants.

Sonja Meller was born in Salzburg in 1971. She studied sculpture at the Linz University of Artistic and Industrial Design, and Interdisciplinary Social Science with a major in contemporary art at San Francisco State University. She has produced numerous art projects in Austria and abroad dealing with spatial, cultural and social facts and circumstances.

Translated from German by Mel Greenwald