Hacking Concrete

Hacking Concrete is an interactive online space with three storylines on patching, decomposing and sprouting with concrete. Concrete in its many states is visible, audible and readable in the displayed footage, and its materiality unfolds in the forms of dust, mush, cracks and other soft and hardened structures. Tending to concrete’s materiality, we experimented with refusing access barriers that are caused by hardened structures. In the forms of videos, images, sounds, and texts, the concrete in our work remains ‘open’ as a material that is not yet ‘set up’ or cured or hardened. We both studied concrete as dust, powder, slush or goo, and as a metaphor in language when it is used to express that something is to be made solid or fixed. This work studies ways that concrete unforms and operates otherwise than it is colloquially considered to be: solid as rock.

The work is currently on display online.

Screenshots

On a black background, there is a dirty gray bucket full of concrete being stirred with a yellow drill and a red attachment. There is text on the image that reads On a black background there is a dirty gray bucket full of wet concrete in more liquid like and powder like forms. Below it is a round piece of tarp. Digitally imposed ontop of the image are three headings On a creme background there is an oval shape with rocks. Some rocks are digitally cut out and placed ontop of a grid, other rocks are inside of rectangular aluminum foil boxes. Ontop of the collage are the words On a black background there are two people holding a bag of concrete that is being dumped into a large black bucket. The concrete bag has been cut open and the dust is falling into the bucket. The captions in the video read: A gray bucket with red concrete is stirred with a trowel by a hand in a protective work glove. Superimposed over the image are the words On a black background there is a dirty gray bucket full of wet concrete in more liquid like and powder like forms. A white person's arm with bracelets and a protective work glove stirrs the concrete with a trowel. Below it is a round piece of tarp. Digitally imposed ontop of the image are three headings