THE HUDDLE

In THE HUDDLE, Katja Aufleger makes several pieces of construction machines – stripped of their functions and redefined – enter into an unconventional dialogue. In sport, the word „huddle“, that gives the piece its title, refers to a gathering of the team in order to discuss strategy for its next move. In similar fashion to her 2021 installation Applause, where an excavator clapped its hands powerfully, the Berlin-based artist develops a language of her own for machines whose gestures and movements also follow their own internal logic. The familiar sight of construction machines outdoors in public spaces is made stranger and gives rise to new associations: is this archaic-seeming group perhaps directly related to the most modern robots? Are they trying to tell us something – or are they no longer concerned about interacting with us humans? Katja Aufleger has become well-known in recent years for her powerful pictures and sculptures loaded with tension, which permit many different interpretations without slipping towards banality. How she masters this balancing act and whether we, as spectators, observe the interplay or trigger it, can be found out on the forecourt of the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum.

With THE HUDDLE (playoff), artist Katja Aufleger uses augmented reality to show suspenseful moments between excavators that can be experienced at selected locations in Bochum's urban space. The web-based application accesses the camera of the devices.