++++ Antal Lakner was born in Budapest in 1966. Embedded in reality, his innovative and unsparingly ironical products make subversive use of the means of various social, economic, and artistic structures. His major projects are Metro Istanbul (1997), UGAR (with Georg Winter, 1997), INERS-passive working devices (1998-2001), The Icelandic Army (1999), Eurofarm (1998-2000), and Art Mobile (Venice 2001).

++++ The machines in Antal Lakner’s INERS Passive Working Devices series transform seemingly meaningful human activity - the individual phases of repetitional production processes - into meaningless physical exertion, leisure activity and entertainment, whilst immaterialising the work itself. Another series of Lakner named 'The Icelandic Army' is an unarmed defensive fictitious army for observation only. It consists of a series of military equipment like 'Turtle' type personal defensive armoured tent and uniforms which, despite their provisional character, touch on the interfaces between fiction and reality, toys and deadly earnest. For Manifesta 4 a further element from this series, the PLANKTON type Marine Unit, will be floating on the River Main in Frankfurt. (Meike Behm)

INERS - Home Transporter,1999.Poster