15 Mar 2016

The Impossibility of Being at Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna

The Impossibility of Being

Exhibition: March 17 – April 30, 2016
Opening: March 16, 2016, 7:00 pm

Diana Artus, Julius von Bismarck, Anina Brisolla, Sophia Domagala, Brad Downey, Andreas Greiner & Armin Keplinger, Sven Johne, Tillman Kaiser, Caroline Kryzecki, Janina Lange, and Via Lewandowsky

Curated by the current – Hannah Beck-Mannagetta & Lena Fließbach

From everything I know nothing – With sensual, serious, and humorous approaches the artists investigate the ambivalence of failure and tear the idea of the infallibility of mankind asunder. The fragile relationship between nature and culture, the limitations of material and technological progress, and a dysfunctional interpersonal communication become visible in their works as an individual as well as a sociopolitical phenomenon.
Thus, Janina Lange's film 'Shooting Clouds' deals with the impossibility of the media(l) documentation/capture of a cloud, while Anina Brisolla's installation reveals the grotesque contradictions of the thousands fleeing over the Mediterranean Sea, and other positions speak of the loss of control and utopias. In the end, however, accidents, mistakes, and failure not only manifest as a necessary part of the creative process, they constitute the new, the wonderful, and the unique in our tragicomic lives.
An interdisciplinary programme with experts from cultural and natural sciences accompanies the exhibition in the form of dialogical guided tours and a film screening with a subsequent artists talk. Furthermore, Caroline Kryzecki and Brad Downey will present also site-specific works.


INTERDISCIPLINARY PROGRAMME

An interactive, interdisciplinary programme with experts from cultural and natural sciences accompanies the exhibition in the form of dialogical tours under the title Walk the Talk. In a moderated discussion two scientists from different fields exchange ideas on selected works and themes with the audience.
Additionally, the essay films This Unwieldy Object by Anna Zett and Tomorrow's Program by Elisophie Eulenburg will be screened and discussed in an artists talk.

Friday, March 18, 2016, 6:30 pm
Filmscreening and artists talk
Truths and Desires of Lost Souls on the Edge of our Civilisation
Anna Zett This Unwieldy Object & Elisophie Eulenburg Tomorrow's Program (Premiere)
Dr. Helge Torgersen (Institute of Technology Assessment, Vienna)
Lotte Schreiber (Filmmaker)

Saturday, March 19, 2016, 12:00 pm
Walk the Talk #1
Grotesque in Politics, Religion, and Love: Temptation, Narcissism, and Failure
Dr. Lisz Hirn (Philosopher, Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research)
Gerd Valchars (Political scientist, University of Vienna)

April 26, 2016, 6:30 pm
Walk the Talk #2
Nature vs. Culture: Sisyphus, Loss of Control, and Utopias in the Anthroprocene
Dr. Alexander Damianisch (Head Support Art and Research, University of Applied Arts Vienna)
Prof. Dr. Reingard Grabherr (Virologist, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna)

April 27, 2016, 6:30 pm
Walk the Talk #3
Perfection vs. Creation:To Dash Beautifully against Material and Technical Progress
eSeL (Founder eSeL.at, art historian)
Robert Trappl (Psychologist, cyberneticist)

Saturday, April 30, 2016, 12:00 pm
Walk the Talk for Children & Youth
The Imperfect Human:The Importance of Borders and the Value of the Neighbour, the Next, the Other
Dr. Daniela Camhy (Philosopher, Founder Austrian Center of Philosophy with Children)
Belinda Kazeem (Cultural theorist, author, artist)

… /// ...

Friday, March 18, 2016, 6:30 pm
Filmscreening and artists talk
Truths and Desires of Lost Souls on the Edge of our Civilisation
Anna Zett This Unwieldy Object & Elisophie Eulenburg Tomorrow's Program (Premiere)
Dr. Helge Torgersen (Institute of Technology Assessment, Vienna)
Lotte Schreiber (Filmmaker)
Moderated by Alexander Martos (Science Communications Research, Vienna)

Anna Zett, This Unwieldy Object, Germany/USA, 2014,
HD video 16:9, 47 min, video still, © Anna Zett
English with German subtitles

In the science drama This Unwieldy Object the animated dinosaurs of Hollywood cinema meet the petrified ghosts of colonial science. You follow the protagonist on a road trip into the dusty heart of the USA, where fossil traders, sculptors, and paleontologists are trying to reconstruct the plot of natural prehistory. But the more experts and entrepreneurs she talks to, the more obscure their projects appear. As the protagonist gets carried away by her own theories, the screen itself turns into a virtual dig site for unwieldy objects between science and fiction, trauma and entertainment, the remote past and the near future.

Anna Zett (*1983 in Leipzig, DE) lives and works in Berlin.


Elisophie Eulenburg, Tomorrow's Program, Bahamas 2013/2014, docufiction,
HD video 16:9, 31 min, video still, © Elisophie Eulenburg
English with German subtitles (Premiere)

Following a devastating natural catastrophe, a number of people have found refuge in an isolated place in the middle of nowhere. In a synthetic atmosphere of colourful carpets, fake bookshelves, and plastic plants, things obey strange gravitational forces. While objects constantly totter dangerously, people have adapted to their self-created, unstable living environment. In Elisophie Eulenburg's film Tomorrow's Program the contradictory story of a struggle for survival is told through fact and fiction. The interviewed report about catastrophic events, while the camera observes their delight about diverse entertainment activities on a transatlantic cruise. The juxtaposition of the real experiences of the passengers on board and their subjective imaginations of a future world interwoven with the artist's visual metaphors results in the multilayered narrative structure of the film.

Elisophie Eulenburg (*1983 in Bonn, DE) lives and works in Berlin.