I’m floating in the most peculiar way

will be presented as part of the ATMOSPHERES exhibition of STEIERMARK SCHAU at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from 15.01.2024 – 28.02.2024.

‚I’m floating in the most peculiar way‘ is rich in scientific image material: photographs of planetary surfaces, of microbial life frozen in the ice, and of freeze etchings from blasting microorganisms out of the ice. The shimmering/glowing orange and sun-like ground, however, give the impression that the viewer is floating through the glowing hot gases of an exoplanet and could immerse you in an experience featuring hot ice, ruby-red clouds, or metallic rain.

PARTICIPATING ARTISTS: Azra AkĆĄamija & Dietmar Offenhuber, Benedikt Alphart & Adina Camhy, Michaela Grill / Stefan NĂ©meth, Markus Jeschaunig, Rainer Kohlberger & Peter Kutin, Gudrun Krebitz, Ralo Mayer, Muntean/Rosenblum, Kay Walkowiak, Richard Wilhelmer & Sonja Mutić, Silvana Beraldo & Daniela Brasil

PARTICIPATING SCIENTISTS & RESEARCHERS: Nanna Bach-MÞller, Patrick Barth, Ludmila Carone, Katy Chubb, Luca Fossati, Christiane Helling, Helena Lecoq Molinos, Emma Puranen, Dominic Samra, Alexandra Scherr, Jan Philip Sindel, Ruth-Sophie Taubner, Christine Moissl-Eichinger, Robert Höldrich, Franz Zotter, Hannes Mayer, Anita Rinner, Dieter Pirker

The Mobile Pavillion was curated by: Astrid Kury

i’m floating in the most peculiar way

is being presented at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York as part of STEIERMARK SCHAU from Nov 13 until January 7, 2024 before travelling on to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) from January 15 to February 28. The works in the exhibtion are inspired by the atmospheres of exoplanets. I’ve been working with scientists and used their freeze etching images of early life forms to create a science fiction world. Sound by the amazing Stefan Nemeth.

more info here

carte noire

is part of this great program in Marseille at Videodrome 2 tomorrow, wish I could be there!

On the Road | Painting Road

Thursday 2 novembre 2023 | 20:00 – 21:00

Fuji de Robert Breer | 1973 | États-Unis | 8 min | 16mm
Just in Time de Kirsten Winter | 1999 | Allemagne | 9 min | 35mm
Chronographies de Jean-Michel Bouhours | 1982 | France | 17 min | 16mm
Carte noire de Michaela Grill | 2014 | Autriche | 2 min
Disquiet de SJ Ramir | 2011 | Nouvelle-ZĂ©lande | 2 min
Erosion 12 ; a walk de Collectif Los ingravidos | 2019 | Mexique | 8 min
AprĂšs le feu de Jacques Perconte | 2010 | France | 7 min

Some of these nomads are also visual artists. The landscapes crossed are transfigured by a pencil line or colored beaches. Robert Breer mischievously underlines Mount Fuji with a black line on the white snow, sometimes completely replacing the landscape with a similar drawing. The bus or train journey becomes a comic strip, a dream, a colorful painting like in Just in Time by Kirsten Winter. At the meeting of painting, photography and cinema, Jean Michel Bouhours juxtaposes and alternates forests, chalets, mountains in black and white and colorful beats. These interventions are made directly on the film stock.

Others, more focused on black and white photography, film strange worlds, lumpy expanses and deep, fascinating and disturbing nights. With Michaela Grill the landscapes sink into the black ink of erasure, with SJ. Ramir the shivers of the grains in suspension tend a veil of solid mist.

And there are the travelers who, searching the pixels of the digital image, evoke blurred, scattered landscapes, from serene spaces, in a process of deconstruction/reconstruction. The intervention takes place at the heart of the image, within its structure.

Los Ingravidos stretches, fragments, multiplies the figures of representation and Jacques Perconte twists them, metamorphoses them and creates gaps, empty spaces inside the filmed surface like holes in the landscape.

ForĂȘt d’expĂ©rimentation

is part of Labocine’s HallucinogĂ©nie program streaming in September

HallucinogĂ©nie invites you on a mesmerizing cinematic journey into the realms of the surreal and the transcendent. Inspired by the concept of photogĂ©nie put forth by filmmaker Jean Epstein, our program explores how images on screen can become portals to altered states of consciousness, akin to the enchanting effects of hallucinogens. Laura Irvins refers to photogenie as „a brief moment, the way the actor moves his head, the beauty of a face, a flicker of an expression that seems to contain all the meaning in a scene.

Through a diverse selection, we migrate from the photogenic to the hallucinogenic image. Cinema allows us to not only record but to imagine and project. In this curated attempt, visuals, sounds and narratives intertwine to transport us beyond the boundaries of reality. As we watch and listen, are we experiencing an experimental process? Is this reproduction faithful to what occurred? Does a trip into the inner realms justify the lack of narrative coherence and provide the filmmaker with more of an artistic license?

Through an array of film forms and scientific experiments, we unravel the cinematic mysteries that mesmerize, captivate, and leave us in a trance, much like the transformative power of hallucinogenic experiences themselves.