Wenzel, Käthe: Hybride Piktogramme In the volume Hybride Piktogramme, Käthe Wenzel brings together a selection of 80 pictograms. What unites them is a playful, subversive approach that radically questions conventional ways of presenting pictograms in public space. Pictograms are by no means simply to be understood as neutrally stylized information, signposts, instructions, prohibitions, warnings, but are sometimes weighty interventions in public and semi-public space. They direct and orchestrate behavior, influence how we interact with each other and how we perceive each other. Pictograms dictate who is allowed to be where, grant residence rights and bans. But who exercises domiciliary rights over public space, from what position and on the basis of what legitimacy and power of disposal? Who are the addressees of this power of disposal, who is included, who is excluded, who is wanted, who is unwanted, who is silenced, who is made invisible? it is significant that the aesthetics of pictograms are still essentially based on the Vienna Convention on Road Signs and Signals. This UN convention was concluded in 1968 to standardize road signs internationally. It has so far been ratified by 73 countries and is the sign set of a fossilized androcentric and automotive age.excerpt from the essay Hybrid pictograms, a guide to seeing others by Eric Schumacher

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