OPEN POWER: a site specific light sculpture by Andrey Ustinov

On May 6th, 2016, the Cologne media artist Andrey Ustinov presents his new site specific light sculpture "OPEN POWER" in Cologne-Deutz directly on the Rhine's edge (Kennedy bank) between the Trade Fair Centre and the Hohenzollern Bridge. The sculpture is a Cologne city map mounted onto an ferry dock board, which was already at this location. The artist pinpointed 100 locations of functioning electrical sockets on the map, which he found throughout the entire city area. The ferry dock board itself houses the very first socket Ustinov discovered for the project. This socket is the power source for the light sculpture. All mapped sockets are also available on a Google map of Cologne. Both the Google map and the map on the ferry dock board are complete with photos of the sockets as well as notations as to where these sockets can be found. The duration of the ferry dock map exhibit is not in the artist's hands.

The project title 'OPEN POWER' is purposefully ambiguous: the word 'open' means 'under open sky' and 'free for everyone'. The word 'power' firstly signifies 'energy' and secondly - 'authority'. The project is a utopian city concept, where the conflict between the principles of common and private goods is abolished. By announcing the sockets' locations, the artist wants to symbolically expropriate the former proprietors of their sockets and offer them up as a common good for all.