Exhibition View

Probabilis

an exhibition about probability and contingency.

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kunstraum BERNSTEINER Dec 5th 2012 – Feb 16th 2013

Cartography of the Intangible, 2012

Light Box, 153x187cm
steel, wood, neon

Shifting States, rotating light-sculpture, 2012

iron, cooper, motor-driven, 250x94cm

Integument, 2012

Videoloop 5', wooden frame, monitor, AV player, 100x160cm

Crystal Math., Video still

Crystal Math.

1-channel video, 5.1 sound, 5000m nylon-wire

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Installed in the basement of the kunstraum BERNSTEINER, the net is addressed as a persuasive trap rather than a communication tool.
Crystal Math explicitly refers to trading and the market as a "being" (see quote Knorr Cetina): Mathematical models and processes (algorithms) not only make up 80 per cent of transactions in Western financial markets today, decision-making itself is sourced out to them as well. What we could therefore call a quantitative turn in finance is here interpreted as a growing dependence, if not addiction, to mathematics. The notion of axiomatic truth expressed in mathematical formulations is becoming a 'divinatory science' unfolding in a bottomless pit of split seconds.

lyrics: Gerald Nestler, sound: Szely, voice: Simon Streather

kunstraum BERNSTEINER / im Basement Feb 29 – April 25 2012

paraflows, das weisse haus, Argentinierstr. 11, Vienna / 13.9. - 20.10. 2012

Telluric Force
Photo: Georg K.

Telluric Force

Computer Animation, 2.0 Sound, Plasma-Screen, wooden frame, 90 x 150 cm

PARKFAIR 2012 ARTE NOAH, Sept. 19.–23. 2012, Vienna

Sound of Sirens
a social platform / video portal

March 11th 2012 was the anniversary of the earthquake, the tsunami and the nuclear disaster having hit
northeastern Japan. For this reason, the two artists Edgar Honetschläger and Sylvia Eckermann, in collaboration with Yukika Kudo, Peter Scharmüller and Ken Ishimoto have created a video platform on the Internet, entitled SOS = Sound of Sirens. The platform urges people worldwide to reflect on the disaster and its aftermath in cinematic form. SOS will be taking stock of how a democratic society deals with an environmental catastrophe; it investigates social change and political motivations after an environmental disaster, reflects,processes and moulds them into various forms of artistic expression. SOS focuses on how the individual, the group, the government, the world community respond to a sudden event of incomprehensible dimension and SOS will give victims a forum to deal with their anger, their sorrow and their fear.

Naked Eye
installationview, Kunstraum Bernsteiner 2010

photo: Michael Goldgruber

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In her solo show Naked Eye at the Kunstraum Bernsteiner, Sylvia Eckermann applies the artistic media of (moving) image, colour, installation, and text as a means to resolve the all too familiar categories of the narrative of the exhibition. The White Cube of the Viennese exhibition space is transformed into the setting of a reflection in the double meaning of the word: Reflecting materials charged with artistic purport become the agents of an investigation into the subtle relations between the codes of artistic expression. In its material and immaterial presence, her work critically addresses both the ideas of the autonomy and the elusiveness of the artwork. Deliberately moving between the layers of her material, linguistic, visual and tonal1 objects and their installation, Eckermann consequently refuses to pre-define a conceptual interpretation of her work. Thus, Naked Eye can be seen as an artistic method of interrogation, which appropriates or rather fuses objects and light into multifarious but yet subjective strata of visibility. The narrative of the exhibition as the traditional textual ambience of art is thereby split into fluid and fleeting perceptions that nonetheless manifest the arts’ inherent potential to inspire the individual viewer. The “speech” in Alfred Adler’s2 quote that forms the textual element in Eckermann’s show could be reinterpreted in terms of art: “If what the patient says seems ambiguous and confusing, close your ears and open your eyes wide. Watch him closely when he talks and you will understand exactly what he does not tell you.”

The Trend Is Your Friend!
installationview MKL | Kunsthaus Graz 2009

a performative and interactive experimental set up

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MedienKunstLabor | KUNSTHAUS GRAZ 2009

Idea, Concept, Artwork: Sylvia Eckermann
Concept, Artistic Research: Gerald Nestler

Sound architecture: Peter Szely

Trends are all the trend. Alongside fashion and health it is analyses of economic trends and flows of finance and commodities which are shaping our environment. To what extent do they influence and change us as individuals and as a society? By recognising and relying on trends do we become part of an economisation that promises profit but at the same time absorbs us? Does the individual who opposes the trend get even socially marginalised? Is the titular "friend" in a knowledge-based society therefore an updated manifestation of what Orwell termed Big Brother? A new, if more complex uniformity of control that denies us future with its hubris of calculability? The installation "The Trend Is Your Friend" invites us to participate in an experimental set-up of markets to think through these questions for ourselves. With the aid of our senses, we dive into a playful environment in virtual space while our bodies remain in the real.

— a paradoxical conversation piece

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Filmed and edited by Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler © 2008-2011

3-channel video, duration: 01:58:14

Languages: English, German and Chinese / Subtitles: English and Chinese
Filmed at locations in Beijing, Chengdu, Shanghai, Western Sichuan,

Northern Yunnan, Krems, Stopfenreuther Au and Vienna.

Breathe My Air is a cinematic conversation between participants from the worlds of art and curating, filmmaking, literature and poetry, philosophy and theory living in China and Europe.

Bringing ideas, thoughts, perceptions and experiences to the fore and combining them with footage filmed on location and en route the 3-channel video deals with current notions of modern concepts such as utopia, change and progress. Moving away from generalizations of identity politics to individual agency beyond cultural stereotypes, the project engages in a cross-cultural exchange on the actuality and methodologies of a society beyond the limitations produced of politics and global economy.

Breathe My Air was filmed at locations proposed by the participants and during extended travels in China.

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In Ninth Heaven — or the far end of Europe

An Interactive Synthetic Scape

Museum Stein, Minoritenplatz 4, 3504 Krems-Stein A, Sep 2008 - Sep 2009
3D-realtime system, projection, 5 channel audio system, golden mirrors, interface, computer, size: 4x4x2.5m

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

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.

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Mirror Cells

Mirror Cells is an interactive installation that turns around our perception of space and time.
The gamers as well as the visitors are immersed inside an infinitely mirrored acousmatic-visual 3d-world.... more

Unreal Mod, 3 Projections, 8 channel audio-system, mirrors, wooden construction, size: 10x5x5 meters
Composition: Peter Szely, Programming: Doron Goldfarb

, "Acting in Utopia" Sep 5 - Nov 11 2007 Landesgalerie Linz, Museumsstr. 14

curated by: Anna Karina Hofbauer & Dieter Buchhart

plastic trade-off
Meta-performative Game in Real Time / Intervention into Global Financial Markets and Exchanges

plastic trade-off is a light sculpture as well as a virtual knowledge space. It visualizes global financial markets and thus a core element of global economy. The real-time data of specific markets are translated into abstract light flows which reflect this global system in a dynamic work of art... more

the project by Sylvia Eckermann + Gerald Nestler is a permanent installation at:
WORKING_WORLD.NET Living and working in the midst of globalization,

Museum Arbeitswelt Steyr, A 2006-2009

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n o w h e r e — ein welt raum spiel
n o w h e r e is a Game Mod - a deconstruction of the first person shooter Unreal.

We created n o w h e r e around the utopian ideas of a group of architects and artists that lived in Berlin and other parts of Germany and communicated by way of letters. They believed in the possibility of changing society through Architecture and Art.
This exchange was named "Die Gläserne Kette" (The Glass Chain) and was conducted in secret in the years 1919/20... more

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RAUMATMEN wet f{r}iction
an audio-visual space-skin, digital video 70'
created for an exhibition on Science Fiction - Kindermuseum ZOOM, Museumsquarter Vienna/ A

The inside skin of a space station is enveloped in large size projections. The space station is not comprised of inflexible, rigid material - it is not hardware but wetware - it is a breathing, living bio-substance - a flexible membrane which moves - future material maybe discovered in an extraterrestrial lab… The exhibition space is thus transformed into a living organism... more
An acousmatic and sound-architectural structure intensifies the intended effect of Raumatmen (of a 'breathing of the space'). The sound aura - a matrix of speakers which is installed on the ceiling, walls and floor - allows the space to breathe. Sound: Peter Szely

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reservoir_bots
Game mod for audio/visual live performances in various locations

Künstlerhaus Wien, Public Netbase Vienna, ...

Resembling a flaneur in an unknown city the bot moves through a "ludic 3d environment" - moved by the hand of the player - robbed of his identity which the player has adopted for herself. It seems as if those she encounters have a life of their own. But this is an illusion - they are caught in loops of movements which stop abruptly and thus destroy the illusion.
The moving flaneur becomes a VJ producing ever new images which with the beat of live-generated sounds melt into an "emersive media environment"... more

Live Sound by various Artists: Peter Szely, Electric Indigo, Christof Cargnelli

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fluID - arena of identities

Game Level, ISEA2004 / KIASMA Helsinki / FI

This game is about finding your identity (if you have got one), to change your identity, to steal or borrow another person's identity or to destroy identities... more

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FemCity

a Multi-user Computer Game for Girls

This Game is about careers, lifestyle, dreams and realities of young women.
FemCity is a simulation of a complex social and economic environment, which young women find themselves in, when designing their future. FemCity was developed in collaboration with Edeltraut Hanappi-Egger and Gehard Hanappi and commissioned by the Bureau of women's Affairs Vienna.

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EXPOSITUR - Virtual Knowledge Space

a Game Mod as a Virtual Museum, KIASMA Helsinki / FI

In constructing a virtual museum we changed, the logical structure and the aesthetics of a museum from scratch. We wanted to build a museum maze, a crossword puzzle of objects and stories, an audio-visual "Undreamed" and a hyper museum based upon a computer game.

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PLAN-it !

an Interactive Multisensory Environment, The Mindzone, Millennium Dome London GB 2000

PLAN-it! is an installation connecting a spatial with an aesthetic and an intellectual experience. PLAN-it! presents artistic statements to answer 4 questions regarding our social and personal futures. These questions focus on the topics of communication, work, material things and transport [especially flight]. (collaboration with Herbert Lachmayer, Art+Tek Institute Linz A)

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HOTEL SYNTHIFORNIA

Game Level

Institut für Neue Kulturtechnologien, Public Netbase tO, SYNWORLD

27. bis 31. Mal 1999, Ovalhalle H, Museumsquartier Wien A

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PATCHWORK - PATCHLIFE

mixed-means installation

Work & Culture, Landesmuseum Linz A
in collaboration with Herbert Lachmayer

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Wien 1991

pavilion, sound and sight installation, Museum of the History of Vienna / A

Sonderausstellung, Wienmuseum, Karlsplatz