PINHOLE COMPUTERS is the name of an art and music performance duo whose members are Julia Zinnbauer (Düsseldorf, Germany) and Matt Hulse (London, UK).
For the festival Europe in the City, that takes place in Düsseldorf from 1st to 9th May, they created a short, loopable digital film that signals a message of hope and positive communication between the artists' respective countries, and more broadly throughout the European Union, and indeed potentially the world. Thereby they also celebrate the 75th anniversary of the foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia.
Matt Hulse and Julia Zinnbauer met in February 2018 in Düsseldorf in the context of the Düsseldorf Photo Weekend, where they both presented their work. During that week, the pair collaborated on an entirely new performance video installation, presented in the Glashaus on Worringer Platz, called SPACEFALL.Together Hulse and Zinnbauer shot a video on the Worringer Platz in Düsseldorf, a large square that is said to be the ugliest and dirtiest area of the whole city. Their aim was to find beauty in this space as well as to articulate a general love for neglected spaces.
A link to an excerpt from the video you can find here, as well as a further description of SPACE FALL and Thomas Frank's article about the project for the Westdeutsche Zeitung Düsseldorf.
During the first period of 'lockdown' Hulse and Zinnbauer formed the duo PINHOLE COMPUTERS. The early works (spoken word and music) were created remotely, and montaged digitally. They met again in person in Scotland in the summer of 2020 (during Zinnbauer's artist-in-residence at MERZ Gallery, Sanquhar). There they created and filmed a short performance, exploring semaphore (with self-made flags) and the idea of 'remote signalling'. A first semaphore video was posted immediately after midnight of New Year's Eve 2020, just moments after the UK's official departure from the EU. This was intended as a poetic first step towards keeping the creative connections between the UK and Germany alive.
The message of the video for „Europe in the City“ spells out the words "ABER HALLO". This is of course an easily-understood message of friendly welcome and invites a response. These words also refer in fact to a bar on Kölner Strasse in Düsseldorf, now called 'Atemlos'. It was in this location that PINHOLE COMPUTERS first discussed and examined their collaborative ideas for SPACEFALL.
For the time being, as the pandemic continues, PINHOLE COMPUTERS' Instagram account serves as the primary platform for showcasing their work and ideas.
Matt Hulse and Julia Zinnbauer are currently exploring a project that will celebrate and strengthen, through art and friendship, the long-standing partnership between Düsseldorf and its twin city of Reading (UK). They are preparing an artistic film about the Hexagon, a Brutalist multi-purpose theatre, that was opened in 1979 in Reading. The architecture and the story of the Hexagon will provide the framework in which the cultural exchange and the friendship between Reading and Düsseldorf will be further explored. On the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Reading Düsseldorf Association and the friendship between both cities, the film will be presented in 2022.