FUTURE MANIFESTOS
KJØPMANNSGATA UNG KUNST, 9. APRIL – 31. MAI 2026
Åpning: 9. april 2026 kl.18.00
Kuratorer: Zane Cerpina, Espen Gangvik
Improvised Inflatable Device (Fat Man) [2023]
Dani Ploeger
suitcase, synthetic fabric, electric ventilator, mobile phone, microcontroller
A suitcase bomb is equipped with a trigger system based on the Nokia 105 mobile phone, the preferred detonation device used by non-state actors in Iraq and Syria during the 2010s. When the phone number is dialled, a bomb blows up: a 1:1 scale inflatable replica of the Fat Man bomb, the atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, and the design of which has become – uncannily – iconic.
This device does not emulate the physically destructive force of an industrially produced weapon, as commonplace improvised explosive devices do. Instead, it offers a grotesque replication of the obscene aesthetics of the slickly designed bombs that are presented at arms trade fairs.
The inflatable bomb was constructed in collaboration with Tools for Action. The work was commissioned by V2_Lab for the Unstable Media as part of Dani Ploeger’s research project Destructive Circuits: a machine archaeology of improvised explosive devices.
Dani Ploeger [UK/NL/DE]
Dani Ploeger is an artist and cultural critic who explores situations of conflict and crisis on the fringes of the world of high-tech consumerism. His work spans a broad range of forms, from media art, installations, and film to performance art, anarchist engineering, and cultural theory. It is often informed by field research on the use of everyday technologies under extraordinary circumstances. He has made a VR installation while accompanying frontline troops in the Russo-Ukrainian war, travelled to dump sites in Nigeria to collect electronic waste originating from Europe, and stolen razor wire from the so-called ‘high-tech fence’ on the EU outer border in Hungary. He is currently working on the development of anarchist technologies for the Rojava Revolution in North-East Syria.
Dani’s artwork has been exhibited worldwide, including at ZKM Karlsruhe, the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Nairobi National Museum, the London Film Festival, the Eunam Museum of Art, the Lviv Museum of Ethnography, and Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. His book Deserted Devices and Wasted Fences: Everyday technologies in extreme circumstances was published with Triarchy Press in 2021.
Dani holds a PhD from the University of Sussex (UK) and is currently Professor of Performance and Technology at the University of Music and Theatre Munich. He is also Artistic Director of Fabricatie – a platform for art and industry in the Netherlands, and a Fellow at V2_ Lab for the Unstable Media in Rotterdam. In 2022, he initiated the Rojava Center for Democratic Technologies in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.
www.daniploeger.org / www.v2.nl/publications/destructive-circuits
