art
Art is essential for every society. For the balance of everyday life, for everyday life itself. With its own art section, the VËRYL Festival contributes to the visibility of a young, up-and-coming art scene and current discourses. In 2024, the VËRYL Festival will present a physical solo exhibition by the artist Johannes Kiel and a virtual exhibition entitled “Informatively Formative” with the participating artists Jacqueline Hen, Marta Vovk, Banz & Bowinkel, Julia Beliaeva, Manja Ebert, Victoria Pidust. The virtual exhibition will be accessible on site via VR glasses. “Informative Formative” was last shown as part of the Forward Festival 2023 at HKW - Haus der Kulturen der Welt.
history:
For all those who have not been there in the past, here is a selection of artists from the last few years.
Johannes Kiel: “Kinetic Operators” (2023), close-ups
For the first VËRYL FESTIVAL for electronic music and media-based art, mixed media artist Johannes Kiel (*1995) is creating a site-specific constellation of his “Kinetic Operators” and other new works. Kiel plans, designs and constructs all of his machines himself, from the technical sketches and modular 3D-printed components to the finished installation. Part of his computer-based multimedia installation is therefore also the work “Dendrit” - a self-built router that autonomously supplies the works with a WLAN network. The media artist originally developed his working method from painting. His repertoire therefore includes hyper-realistic drawings and manual implementation as well as coding and development. At first glance, Kiel's “Kinetic Operators” resemble the microscopic images of viruses. These technoid figures measure and visualize - supplied with information from “Dendrit” - data streams at global hubs: e.g. Singapore, New York, Frankfurt am Main. The intensity of these data streams is translated into acoustic or visual signals for sensory perception. The exhibition at the V is primarily concerned with the concept of emergence.Johannes Kiel studied with Schirin Kretschmann and Olaf Nicolai at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Munich and with Carsten Nicolai at the HfBK in Dresden. He is currently studying with Hito Steyerl and at the State University of the Arts in Karlsruhe. The mixed media artist has already exhibited in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin, Munich, Cologne, Rome, Minsk and the European Parliament. Most recently, his work was purchased by the collection of the Cultural Foundation of the Free State of Saxony.
Artist statement on the “Emergence” concept
“Emergence refers to the development of new properties of a system as a result of the interaction of its elements. For example, ant tribes have complex survival strategies due to simple behavioral rules of the individuals. Neuronal functions can also be described using the concept of emergence. A neuron can receive signals and pass them on. However, it is not able to comprehend the thinking in which it itself is involved. Since the emergence of the Internet - the cognitive globe - humans have been involved in a further meta-level of emergence: Now the individual has become the cell of a globally biosynthetic organism.The exhibition “Tbit/s” consists of several interdisciplinary installations (mechanics/mechanical engineering, electronics and software) based on global internet traffic. Immaterial swarms change their behavior depending on data packets. Human physical interaction becomes transferable via WLAN. Physicality becomes technologically expandable and amorphous through a 3D-printed modular system and sensor technology, raising the question of the role of the individual and interpersonal relationships in a global network that is taking on a life of its own.”
Exhibition view “Informatively Formative”, here in front of a work by Victoria Pidust
In collaboration with the magazine and creative studio COEVAL, founded in Milan, and the architect Priscilla Oliveros, “Informatively Formative” is an exhibition architecture with works by artists who question, examine and advance the paradigmatic change of classical genres through new technologies and media: Banz&Bowinkel, Julia Beliaeva, Manja Ebert, Jacqueline Hen,Marta Vovk and Victoria Pidust. With the exhibition “Informatively Formative”, curator Marcus Boxler brings together contemporary positions of artists who, by virtue of their training, belong to classical genres, but who use media and technologies that characterize their present to break these genre boundaries and translate them into those environments or transform themselves through those means: For example, Marta Vovk completed her training with Daniel Richter and as a master student of Friederike Feldmann in the field of painting, while at the same time using contemporary means of image manipulation and information genesis for her paintings and acrylic wall reliefs that are critical of capitalism. Julia Beliaeva trained at the Mykahilo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative-Applied Arts and Design with a focus on sculpture and applies 3D modeling, 3D scanning, 3D printing and virtual reality to this classical genre.The works are presented in a virtual environment, which was realized with the support of Coeval Magazine and in collaboration with the architect Priscilla Oliveros on the platform www.spatial.io. Based on the question of how the materiality and objecthood of contemporary artworks can be transformed into a digital environment, related discourses are stimulated that relate to landscape, climate, ecology and sustainability. They imply questions that examine the ecological responsibility of art: What is the relationship between works, their materials and their production conditions? To what extent are artists mirrors of their material environment and how does this affect their works? All these considerations flowed into the conception of the virtual exhibition environment. Oliveros describes the exhibition venue as “abstractly imagined, a young landscape forming in a new sun”. Contemporary artists are often ascribed the image of being seismographs for their present. Oliveros goes one step further for the virtual exhibition venue and describes it as “solar-powered” by the works of the participating artists.
