Two large sculptures and sixteen reliefs were created for the new OIZ Albis Data Center in the city of Zurich. In a building in which all employees spend most of the day in front of screens, it seems appropriate to address the perception of physical three-dimensionality.

The initial form of a chewed piece of gum is enlarged to 170 x 160 x 120 cm, cast in polymer plaster and placed in the space. A second cast is rotated by 90° and placed on the corresponding ‘tip’. Due to the different positioning, the two identical bodies are hardly recognizable as the being same. Only one point in the room offers an identical view of both.

The reliefs, modeled after the same template, show different, spatially foreshortened side views. They are also cast twice, painted in different colors and, reminiscent of a virus, appear at unexpected places in the rooms.

Claudia Pantellini: What are the special challenges of doing commissioned works?

Markus Schwander: Perhaps the biggest challenge is not to be distracted by the external demands and expectations, which come from the most varied of sources. In the end, a work should emerge which amazes and stimulates, that doesn't ingratiate itself to a place, but can maintain its foreignness. The demand I make of myself is that I design a constellation of works that will remain interesting for as long as possible. I would like to ensure the possibility that users will still be stimulated after walking by for the eleventh time; that the sculptures can be perceived in different lighting conditions and also with different personal emotional atmospheres. I see the greatest potential of commissioned works in the duration of their presence, and in that therefore the encounter with the artwork can be repeated for years.

9 Claudia Pantellini and Markus Schwander, Talk at the opening of the commissioned work Der Dreh (The Turn), 2013