Naked Eye

kunstraum BERNSTEINER, Schiffamtsgasse 11, 1020 Vienna
1 Dec 2010 – 22 Jan 2011

Sylvia Eckermann: naked eye, installation view

aesthetics is politics / dream a dreamer’s dream

experimental film, video art, electronic art, film-film, video installation, painting, electronic painting…there are heaps more, a never ending row of vague definitions of what the arts are doing these days. well - are they doing anything? i mean in terms of relevance for the world, for the societies, for the environment, for the human race, for all those wonderful things that go beyond human existence? i mean non-human beings, plants, animals, well – spirits, and all of those unnamable things that share the world with us. l’art pour l’art? humans for humans? ain’t we beautiful? us! me! under the grip of philosophy we are, under the theory - our little theory of the perception of the world. our! who makes the theory? do we? vanity. the picture talks. it talks more than ever before. we think that all of those who lived before us saw and knew less in comparison to us. surely everybody believed so of their own times. image pollution – why add?

naked eye shows why. it combines all the genres listed in the first sentence. digital dream world, yes - except in this case it is the beholder who creates the images. sylvia eckermann offers. what a selection! szely’s music compliments it – more – it enhances it and nonetheless stands for itself. naked eye is art at its best: it doesn’t explain anything, it does not even tell a story; it will tell many stories in your brain - your stories. it does what the arts are meant to be doing: it draws you in, it makes you feel, it unites and does not separate what always has been one and was falsely set apart since the enlightenment: reason and feeling. naked eye lets you dream – not the way we’ve been taught to through the picture’s supremacy, no, it lets you dream a dream you surely have never had.

© edgar honetschläger, filmmaker/artist

16. - 27 Nov 2010

Reigen

"Reigen" digitales Video, site-specific installation, Dorotheum Wien 2010
Installation zur Eröffnung der Vienna Art Week 2010

Sylvia Eckermann: Reigen, videostills

26. 9. - 8. 11. 2009

The Trend Is Your Friend

a performative and interactive artistic experiment                  

MedienKunstLabor | KUNSTHAUS GRAZ 2009

The Trend is your Friend! is an artistic and experimental translation of the market as a model that increasingly interferes with our social environment. The installation takes a close look at economic trends that relate to finance, commodities, fashion, media, consumption, and many other spheres of life.

TIYF! is a machine that is constructed from visuals and sound, invites the visitors to participate, and is triggered by robots. The work questions the economic world and the market place—this persistent environment that surrounds us. It asks: How can we influence this environment and what is our role in the "game"? more

Idea, Concept, Artwork: Sylvia Eckermann, Concept, Artistic Research: Gerald Nestler, Composition: Peter Szely

The Trend Is Your Friend, installation view

Breathe My Air

Visualising the Invisible in the Social Environment

an art project on intellectual and social environments and their relations
in cooperation with Gerald Nestler.

The video Breathe My Air Phase I brings together different European voices that speak about Progress, Change, and Utopia in the light of thecontributor's experiences in and with China.It was shown at the Project Launch at CPU:798 art space, Beijing in October 2008 to introduce the project's idea of an exchange between Chinese andWestern proponents of the Arts on these relevant topics that have been shaping the modern world on a global level... more

Sep 2011, Four Zero Space, Hangzhou in cooperation with Shanghai eARTS, CN. Curated by Li Zhenhua
Dec 16 2009 - Jan 8 2010, "Mifan" VENUE_Room 208 Shenzen CN

Nov 8 - 26 2009 "Mifan" organised by ASAP curated by Karel Dudesek
AnniArt Gallery, 798 Dashanzi Art District Beijing CN
2008 project launch at CPU:798 Beijing CN

In Ninth Heaven | Im Neunten Himmel
or The Far End of Europe

An Interactive Synthetic Scape

Museum Stein | Kunstmeile Krems AT
Sept. 2008 — Sept. 2009

Fluctuating between the worlds of early Baroque and late Ming/early Qing eras, the project explores a rather brief yet multi-faceted period of enlightened dialogue between Europe and China. Although characterised by a respectful scientific exchange, it took place in a world that was troubled by the Thirty Years' War, Inquisition and Counter-Reformation on the one side, and by the insurgences during the turnover of the dynasties on the other... more

3D realtime-system, projection, 5 channel audio system, golden mirrors, interface, computer, size: 4x4x2.5m

Sylvia Eckermann: Concept, Installation, Artwork
Gerald Nestler: Concept, Researche, Text, Peter Szely: Composition
Doron Goldfarb: Programming, Josef Wienerroither: additional 3D-Objects
Voiceover: Eduard Wildner, Frederic Lion.