MICRO DWELLINGSMICRO DWELLINGSMICRO DWEL

N55N55 read more: http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/N55/n55.html N55 read more: http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/N55/n55.html

PhotosN55 STUDIO FØNSPhotosN55 STUDIO FØ

N55 SPACEFRAMEN55 SPACEFRAMEN55 SPACEFRA

XYZ CARGO/ N55 SPACEFRAME VEHICLESXYZ CA

N55 encourages visiting us on the open internet instead: https://n55.dk/ About N55: N55 is a platform for artistic collaboration, operating on a high level in international contemporary art, design and architecture. Since the start in 1996, N55’s projects have received widespread acclaim both in professional circles and among a broad public. N55’s notion of art is grounded in a perception of art as a part of daily life, with the artist as a generalist who can orient her/himself towards any field of knowledge. N55 is first and foremost concerned with relations between ethics and aesthetics, and thereby politics, and to develop an artistic work with practical as well as metaphorical implications. By reformulating certain features of our daily life and surroundings, it is possible to create meaningful situations and social surplus. Art is not restricted to certain methods, techniques and theories, but must take all possible media into consideration, and by means of a general approach, be concerned with fundamental conditions for existence. The practice of N55 is interdisciplinary, multifaceted and include basic philosophical work on language and art, development of a range of functional sculptures and installations, collaboration and dialogue with researchers, activists, artists and others, and research on social, scientific, artistic and political issues. The work is shown locally and at international art exhibitions and all systems and manuals are available on the Internet and in publications. The work is published/ released under Creative Commons license: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 as a form of ‘open source’, which others can copy, build upon, etc. respecting to the license. All along N55 have sought an independent position in relation to art markets and maintained a critical and constructivist position. N55 wish to demonstrate that art as a way of living and acting can be of considerable relevance for other areas of society, and raise attention about basic relations between art and politics, aesthetics and ethics. In general the work goes against commercialisation of personal relations, seeks to find ways in which we could organise in smaller concentrations of power, and build societies based on inclusion, not exclusion. With projects like the XYZ CARGO cargo bikes, we are trying to create a model for producing things fair and locally in an environmental and socially sustainable way. N55 Homepage: n55.dk Mail: n55@n55.dk Person responsible for N55: Ion Sørvin, founder of N55 in 1996. Awarded the Danish Arts Foundation’s lifelong honorary grant (Statens Kunstfonds livsvarige hædersydelse), 2026. Education: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen 1991-1998. ( Equivalent to MFA) Member of Kunstnersamfundet in Denmark Member of BKF/ Danish Visual Artists Married to the late co-founder of N55 Ingvil Aarbakke (1970-2005). Living and working together with architect Anne Romme in Copenhagen, Denmark. and Føns, Denmark. SPACEPLATES is a collaboration between N55/ ion Sørvin and Anne Romme. The project was initiated in 2010. We developed SHELTER VILLAGE together in 2023. Two sons: Frode Aarbakke and Sigfus Romme. Former core collaborators: Till Wolfer (2011-2025) Øivind Alexander Slaatto, designer (2007-2009) Sam Kronick, artist ( 2008- 2010) Cecilia Wendt, artist (1996- 2002) Anne Rikke Luther Jørgensen, artist ( 1996-2002) Marius Hartmann ( 1996-1997) Lennard Grahn, artist ( 1996- 1997)

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: March 2021 We have been invited by the group Space Caviar to make a contribution to the V-A-C exhibition, at Palazzo delle Zattere in Venice, during the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2021. We have made three new works: XYZ CARGO MOBILE LIBRARY, XYZ CARGO MOBILE PUBLISHING STATION and the XYZ CARGO MOBILE BROADCASTING STATION. The three cycles will be on exhibition first and then be activated by Space Caviar in public space. The XYZ CARGO LIBRARY was completed and shipped from Copenhagen last week and the framework for the XYZ CARGO MOBILE BROADCASTING STATION and the XYZ CARGO MOBILE PUBLISHING STATION was completed in Hamburg. (The special equipment, will be installed in Venice with SPACE CAVIAR, later). XYZ CARGO is a collaboration between N55 and Till Wolfer. It was initiated by N55 in Copenhagen in 2011.

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: January 2020: N55 PEACE MONUMENT This is what the visitors will see, from now on, flying or driving into the danish airforce base in Karup. We have just finished mounting the N55 MONUMENT FOR PEACE/ very large swing set with climbing grips, in front of the united danish defence forces headquarters in Jutland, Denmark. We are still hoping that we can make the necessary changes to our society, redistribution of wealth and ressources, in a democratic and peaceful way. We are proud to live in a society where this sculpture is accepted in front of the headquarters of the defence. I guess it would not have been accepted in a similar place in the US, Russia or China... N55 usually produce a manual together with the work. We have always believed that providing a written context can help communicating the work in a more transparent and nuanced way. We will be making a booklet about this thing as well. Until then here are a few things to explain some thoughts in relation to this in the form of a couple of questions and answers: Why would N55 ever accept a commission from the Danish Defence? ( Answered by me: ion Sørvin ) Through my entire carrier my collaborators and I have been intentionally transferring money and ressources from concentrations of power like the state, various institutions like museums, foundations, municipalities, companies, private collectors etc, into N55 and used it to try to find new ways of thinking and living, that questions and criticises the same concentrations of power. We have always been trying to find ways of living with as small concentration of power as possible. Because of the fact that concentrations of power doesnt necessarily respect the rights of persons and dominates our societies. I believe that the Danish Defence is a necessary institution and I respect the persons doing their jobs and working to try to provide peace in this way. I am strongly against some of the political decisions that Denmark has made to interfere actively in other countries. And this is a good example of what I am repeating all the time: We should always try to find ways of living with as small concentrations of power possible. This certainly applies to the military. We need them but it should always be kept as small as possible. On a concrete level I have transferred an amount of about 700000 DKK into N55 and this project, that goes from the other activities of the Danish Defence. All the work, that we havent done ourselves, has been done by local subcontractors and will eventually benefit the local community. Building permits and dispensations has been obtained via applications to the local municipality. Why does it look like this? Art can be described as: Persons and their meaningful behaviour with other persons and things in concrete situations Our approach of course has been to find a respectful way to work in this context, with the people who has to be confronted with this in their daily life. The Defence has been represented by a group of employees that has approved the project before we started to implement it. Furthermore we have looked at the physical context. The different branches of the Danish Defence already have their own monuments in the area: A large tank and a fighterplane mounted on a pole etc. All quite large objects and camouflaged. So making a large steel object painted in camouflage seemed like a good starting point. There is a long historical tradition for building monuments in the danish military. These would often be very large and powerful objects intended to mark a historical event and instil respect. We have chosen to use the shape of a wellknown anti tank blocking device called a “czech hedgehog”. Since the tradition for monuments uses a lot of symbols, we have used a passive device like this as a symbol of defence. Furthermore it marks the unity of the three main branches of the Danish Defence in the way the three main tubes are united in a geometrical very strong way. Three bolts holds everything together. A simple narrative that is easy to grasp. This way of assembling things are also used by N55 in many other things like the XYZ CARGO bikes. The inspiration originally comes from the De Stijl movement and Gerrit Rietwelds chair. The N55 PEACE MONUMENT is obviously useless and highly dysfunctional in a military sense. We have tried to undermine the authority of this large heavy object, by making it invisible with camouflage paint and by combining its symbolic functionality with functions from a children's playground: Climbing grips and swingsets. In this way the monument becomes accessible and can provide the pleasure of looking at the sky resting on a peace sign swing. Hopefully reminding the users of what they are here to protect. The peace sign is of course a very direct way of showing what we want to communicate. Since the headquarters of the Danish Defence is situated at an airbase, the peace signs are also visible from the sky.

PhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: September 2019 We were invited to make an exhibition and 2 workshops at the Volkswagen Autostadt in Wolfsburg, German:

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: 2019 We did another workshop and city intervention, with students from the Copenhagen University Summerschool. Maj 2019 We had a visit from Shanghai. A group of very well educated and well informed people named FuturistCirkle aiming to influence the future of Chinese industry. A good chance to discuss our thoughts on local production, RECLAIMING PRODUCTION, fair production, sociallly and environmentally sustainable business and the general moral and aesthetics of fair capitalism (meaning capitalism under democratic control with rules like a maximum allowed fortune and symbiotic exchange of ressources etc.) These are all core subjects for us in N55 at the moment and in focus of our artistic practice and research. March 2019 We are primarily working on the XYZ CARGO/ XYZ SPACEFRAME VEHICLES project at the moment. Designer He Di made a short interview with ion in March: Watch the video here. We also had a visit by students from Konstfack in Stockholm recently, did a talk and showed what we are working with: Latest XYZ CARGO model, XYZ CARGO SHORT:

PhotosPhotosPhotos Old news 2018 We had a very busy year in 2017. We participated in the 11ª Bienal de Arquitetura de São Paulo, Gwangju Design Biennale, State of DESIGN, Berlin, Ecovention Europe, Museum De Domijnen among other exhibitions. The XYZ CARGO project is constantly growing and developing and new models are added. The learning process of creating and maintaining a sustainable art-business is very satisfying. Have a look at xyzcargo.com or look up @xyzcargo on Facebook. Here is a special XYZ CARGO TRIKE for an exhibition called Ecovention Europe at the Museum De Domijnen in the Netherlands: The XYZ CARGO CLEAN AIR TRIKE actively removes harmfull particles from the air. At a cycling speed of 25 km/h the system cleans 4.86 m3 of air per hour. A human being would inhale about 0,5 m3 per hour. The filter removes between 80 and 90 percent of 0,4 μm size particles from the air. The clean air is distributed in public space and hereby shared directly with other persons. The CIRCULAR LIVING SYSTEM, Till Wolfer & N55, Hamburg 2017: The CIRCULAR LIVING SYSTEM is a closed loop system for local and independent food production from own waste. On one hand It allows individuals to plant food locally and to cook. On the other hand, the resulting biowaste and excrements can be recycled in an integrated DIY biogas plant: they are returned to cooking gas and fertilizer for the new food production. The CIRCULAR LIVING SYSTEM proposes an alternative to the existing one-way street of food import, consumption and waste processing: a local, self-sustaining cycle that enables food production and waste recycling at self-determined conditions. The CIRCULAR LIVING SYSTEM consists of four circularly connected elements: - Local garden - fertilized by its own biowaste - Cooking station - Powered by self-produced biogas - Collecting station - Bio waste and collective toilet for faecal upcycling - DIY biogas plant - Generates biogas for cooking and gardening from organic waste The CIRCULAR LIVING SYSTEM is based on the open source system XYZ OPEN CITY by N55 & Till Wolfer - a modular construction system for rooms and infrastructure. The CIRCULAR LIVING SYSTEM was developed by Till Wolfer & N55 in cooperation with Dirk Manns. All elements can be made inexpensively with hand tools made of standard materials themselves. If anybody should wonder why we focus so much on the XYZ CARGO project these years, (we are working on other projects too) here is an article that might provide some degree of overview: CARGO BIKES AS AN ARTISTIC MEDIUM. http://www.n55.dk/MANUALS/DISCUSSIONS/N55_TEXTS/c.html It is a way of operating in public space and trying to work with the aesthetics of setting up a fair production and distribution of things at the same time. Have a look at xyzcargo.com or look up @xyzcargo on Facebook, or instagram xyzcargo to see the latest developments.

PhotosOld news: WELCOME TO XYZ OPEN CITY http://n55.dk/XYZOPENCITYAarhus.pdf Old news: WELCOME TO XYZ OPEN CITY http://n55.dk/XYZOPENCITYAarhus.pdf

PhotosOld News: President Obama studying a copy of the XYZ CARGO BIKE Old News: President Obama studying a copy of the XYZ CARGO BIKE

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: November 2016 We are currently participating in exhibitions at museums in Budapest, Berlin, Dresden and Gent. We recently took part in the Triennale der Moderne in Dessau. It has been a very busy year with a focus on developing the XYZ OPEN CITY project further together with a number of collaborators and of course the XYZ CARGO project. Learning how to share and developing and exploring the aesthetics and ethics of production and things that we need in our everyday life is becomming more and more important. We are standing at a crossroad: Either we find new ways of producing things locally in a socially and environmentally sustainable way and develop systems of distributing raw materials in a fair way globally or we will find ourselves in a situation where production and raw materials are controlled by very few extreemly wealthy and powerfull organisations/ persons. Talk in our studio during the B_Tour festival in Copenhagen, 2016 We have done a lot of talks and workshops in the last three months. Also for students visiting our studio here in Copenhagen. Together we made quick interventions in public space using the XYZ OPEN CITY system. We have updated N55 discussions with a text called WE ARE ALL USEFUL IDIOTS We have just finished the prototype for a new XYZ CARGO model as part of the development of the XYZ SPACEFRAME VEHICLES project. The XYZ CARGO FOURWHEELER is a four -wheel-cycle that can be used for a lot of different purposes. Anything from transporting up to four people to carrying heavy loads We also made a SHOP in the Laznia Center for Contemporary Art in Gdansk, Poland:

SPACEPLATES UNDERWATER HABITATSPACEPLATE

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: 2014: Among other things we are setting up a temporary XYZ OPEN CITY in Estonia, developing a new project called ROOMS CYCLE, working on the socially and environmentally sustainable XYZ CARGO project ( art as a part of everyday life), participating in an exhibition at the Songwon Art Center in Seoul, Korea. On top of that we have to deliver the final design and finish the manual for the UNDERWATER HABITAT project in Sydney, Australia in early Oktober.. The N55 ROCKET SYSTEM is part of COMING SOON: real imaginary futures, an exhibition organized by Bureau Europa, Maastricht, NL. We are also represented locally in our neighborhood in Copenhagen at: SWEET HOME - HOMELESS (CPH photo festival), Gallopperiet, Stadens Museum for Kunst, Freetown Christiania Have a look at these articles about the XYZ CARGOs here : lowtechmagazine.com and Treehugger.co Das Fahrrad / The Bike” in Hamburg’s Museum Of Work. N55 in collaboration with Till Wolfer The XYZ CARGOs are part of the new exhibition “Das Fahrrad / The Bike” in Hamburg’s Museum Of Work. Our new XYZ CARGO homepage is up and running and almost ready: www.xyzcargo.com. WALKING HOUSE is currently part of a show at the MOA, Museum of Art, Seoul Korea. PARCYCLE SWARM is represented at the exhibition URBAN NATURE at the Copenhagen Museum. Recently we were invited to be part of a roundtabel discussion at DAC, The Danish centre of Architecture as part of the Copenhagen ArchitectureX Film Festival. The Swedish Documentary MICROTOPIA, that we are participating in, was also shown on this occassion and by the Danish national television. We are still working on the large scale urban development project in Hedehusene in the outskirts of Copenhagen, invited by White Architects. Its getting more and more clear to us how we all need to: Scale down consumption, take up less space, share more, repair more and produce as much of the things that we need in our everyday life locally. its also crucial to develope systems for fair distribution of raw materials and our planets ressources in general. The XYZ CARGOS are an important part of N55´s attempt to find ways of living in compliance with all this.

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: Marts 2014: N55 have now tested the new XYZ CARGO BIKE and it works beyond all expectations. Its really fast, steady, slim, lightweight and introducing a whole new "flat front" design of the front wheel and steering geometry. We will finish some details and test it thoroughly within the next couple of months and then make it available as a finished bike, as a kit or offer persons to build their own at workshops along with the XYZ CARGO TRIKE. The XYZ CARGO BIKE is based on the N55 Open Source project XYZ SPACEFRAME VEHICLES and is designed in collaboration with Till Wolfer and Jesper Rølund. The XYZ BABY ( made in collaboration with Anne Romme) is also on its way so we will be able to offer three models soon: XYZ CARGO TRIKE, XYZ CARGO BIKE and the XYZ CARGO BABY. The overall work with art as a part of everyday life will continue and a lot of everyday life things are on the way... The XYZ CARGO BIKE is based on the XYZ SPACEFRAMES VEHICLES and hereby on the general XYZ NODES system. the new manual for XYZ NODES can be found here. Here is the newest version of XYZ CARGO BIKE. ( 13th of march 2014) We are still fixing small details, but its almost ready... At the moment N55 is also working with the following things: We are involved in a large scale urban planning project in Hedehusene, Denmark, with White Architects, Malmø. N55s main strategy is to convince the clients that a major distribution of power in society is needed, in order to find ways of existing with as small concentrations of power as possible, so that any real changes can happen. The power of logic versus the logic of power. The guys at White have created a fantastic team of specialists in very different fields and its really interesting to be part of this. Together with architect Anne Romme, Engineer Anne Bagger and Engineer Daniel Sang-Hoon Lee, we are developing a SPACEPLATES underwater habitat, for marin biologist Loyd Godson, to be placed at the Great Barrier reef in Australia. Its going to be realized soon. We have just started a new collaboration with Dane Shea aiming to make an open source XYZ 3D PRINTER. It will be based on the XYZ NODES system and different open source hardware and software. Really exciting!

PhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: November 2013: We have just finished installing a prototype of XYZ OPEN CITY in Groningen, The Netherlands. XYZ OPEN CITY is an open source, modular, low cost system that persons in local communities can use as a tool to implement a wide range of shared functions in public space. The XYZ OPEN CITY system can be used to build anything from urban gardens to fully functional insulated housing. Building materials can be new or recycled. XYZ OPEN CITY constructions can be dedicated to a specific purpose like for example an OPEN POWER STATION based on solar panels and/or wind turbines or it can form multifunctional buildings providing a variety of facilities. It can also be used to construct new infrastructure like bridges, etc. With XYZ OPEN CITY N55 proposes to share things in public space as an alternative to state or private ownership and hereby to establish new commons. XYZ OPEN CITY can plug into existing infrastructure and change the functions of existing buildings, indoors or outdoors, or it can be used to build a new city from scratch. When the system is implemented in an area, it can grow in relation to local needs and wishes. The XYZ OPEN CITY system can be seen as a do-it-yourself urban planning tool; An alternative to the top down urban planning that dominates most cities in the world. N55 encourage persons to build their own XYZ OPEN CITIES and hereby influence their local urban environments. The single modules are so lightweight that a crowd of people can carry one each, gather up at a site and quickly create a large structure with different functions in public space.

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news: July 2013 Copenhagen: We have just tested the new PARKCYCLE SWARM in Copenhagen. The PARKCYCLE SWARM is a modular system that empower persons to build an instant public park whenever and wherever they want to. The PARKCYCLE SWARM consists of a number of human powered mobile gardens. The individual gardens can be combined to form public parks. A PARKCYCLE SWARM can consist of any number of individual gardens. The PARKCYCLE SWARM system is based on the XYZ SPACEFRAME VEHICLES project. ( Please find the manual here). PARKCYCLE SWARM is an Open Source project by N55 and Till Wolfer in collaboration with the Rebar group

PhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotosPhotos Old news 2012: We are participating in the exhibition "Get it louder" in Beijing and we gave a talk there recently. In December we will travel to Hong Kong to participate in the exhibition "Design Renegade", with XYZ MOBILE FACTORY We participated in 13 exhibitions in 2012. News about our exhibition activity can always be found at N55 CV. We have developed a new Version of the XYZ SPACEFRAME VEHICLES: The XYZ CARGO. We aim to take this project all the way and make our art part of everyday life for any person that would like it to be so. In order to find out if its possible to establish a fair way of producing and selling things locally under the realm of Open Source, and Creative Commons, we have decided to set up a MICRO BUSINESS producing and selling XYZ CARGOs locally and under fair conditions. We have been working for months in order to refine the design and production and we hope to be able to deliver homemade XYZ CARGOs in the spring. The manuals for the basic XYZ construction principles and the XYZ recumbent type will nonetheless remain for public download as specified here. We are continuing our research into SPACEPLATES and an academic paper written together with our collaborators, architect Anne Romme and now also engineer Anne Bagger, about the subject, has been accepted for the ICSA, International Conference Structures and Architecture 2013. Follow the work at the manual for SPACEPLATES GREENHOUSE. New summer photos of the worlds first permanent large structure using the principles can be found