Mischa Leinkauf: Endogenous Error Terms

© Mischa Leinkauf; Courtesy of the artist and signs and symbols, New York.

Written by Karl Emil Koch.

We often neglect what is dark and mysterious; it remains obscured from us in our daily lives. In his project Endogenous Error Terms, Mischa Leinkauf reveals those spaces that are hidden below us—spaces that come as a byproduct of what they serve but that nonetheless are filled with poetry. As modern caves, they invite us to contemplate the idea of shelter, both now and in the past, and they represent the fundamental human longing of moving from darkness into light.

© Mischa Leinkauf; Courtesy of the artist and signs and symbols, New York.

Endogenous Error Terms emerged from a seven-year research and exploration of underground water canals all over the world, starting in Tokyo in 2011 right after the big Tohoku Earthquake (Fukushima disaster). For centuries, people have been trying to tame rivers and tides by drilling the subsoil beyond the ground on which they live. These architectural remains, hostile to humans and most animals, form a kind of invisible road system directly under the ground of our cities. By definition, a shelter is a basic architectural structure that provides protection from the local environment. Having a place of refuge, safety, and retreat is generally regarded as a basic physiological human need, which is the basis for the development of higher human motivations. 

From this origin, Mischa Leinkauf began an intensive exploration of lifeless architectural structures that lie underground. While he stayed in these upside-down areas of the city, Leinkauf’s perspective changed from exo- to endogenous, a process that originates from within an organism or a cell. Endogenous Error Terms captures moments of being inside these left alone architectural spaces in Japan, Mongolia, Russia, Germany, Greece, Austria, and Italy. 

© Mischa Leinkauf; Courtesy of the artist and signs and symbols, New York.

Berlin-born and based artist Mischa Leinkauf deals with the hidden possibilities of urban environments and various kinds of limitations of spaces through borders, rules, and architecture. 

Leinkauf is part of the artist duo Wermke/Leinkauf and has received numerous awards worldwide and exhibited internationally at venues such as Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo Japan, Helsinki Art Museum, Moderna Museet Stockholm, ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunstmuseum Bonn, and Manifesta 11.

See more of Mischa Leinkauf on his website.