Alumni in Residence: Verena Tscherner

Since it’s beginning one of AIL’s aim is to foster connections beyond the University’s structure and therefore support Alumni of the University of Applied Arts Vienna. With the new ‘AIL Residency Program’, starting 2025, the AIL promotes and makes visible the artistic work and interdisciplinary research of alumni of the University of Applied Arts outside the traditional exhibition scene. First artist in resident is Verena Tscherner, alumni of the department of Digital Arts.

Born in Tyrol, Verena Tscherner came to Vienna shortly after graduating from high school. She studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna (MDW), where she graduated in 2014. Afterwards she studied at the Friedl Kubelka School, School for Artistic Photography in Vienna, which she graduated in 2019 with a diploma. Then she studied digital art  with Univ.-Prof. Mag.art. Ruth Schnell and UBERMORGEN at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna, and graduated in June 2024. She lives and works as a freelance artist in Vienna.

During her residency at AIL Verena Tscherner will produce a new installation for her upcoming exhibition at Frau* schafft Raum. She will experiment with different breathing patterns of the deflateables. At the same time Tscherner will further work with directional speakers and wants to try different texts, voices, atmospherical sounds and music to see how these sounds may alter the room they are placed in. She will also have her first deflateable inhale deflate set up at her temporary studio at AIL. Tscherner is interested to open up a dialogue about contemporary art and how it affects the observer.

Verena Tscherner experiments with the idea of the vacuum as a way to capture a moment, as a delay of decay, as „holding one‘s breath.“ The aspects of air and vacuum are increasingly gaining new, expanded meanings in her artistic process. inhale. deflate marked the beginning of her engagement with the genre of sculpture and spatial installation. In her diploma thesis entangle. deflate she combined 3D-printed objects with a large-scale deflateable and a sound installation. This large-scale deflateable is sculpturally placed in the space. It takes on an organic character as air is repeatedly added or removed from it using a timer.

inhale. deflate is an artwork that explores the depths of human emotions while simultaneously raising the question of how deeply we can empathize with another person‘s perspective. It addresses the issue of social isolation and how to approach it in art, as well as how to convey it to someone who has rarely experienced this feeling. How can we grow together and develop more compassion for one another? Art has the power to communicate emotions in a very direct and

intuitive way, while at the same time doing so in an entirely metaphorical manner. It asks questions and leaves all the answers to the viewer. It is unique, universal, independent, and at the same time individual.

Breathing as a connecting element. The individual breathes, the community breathes. In meditation, people consciously focus on breathing, a process that usually happens unconsciously.

The deflateable consciously and unconsciously soothes the breathing of the viewers. A space for relaxed togetherness can emerge, a space for collective consciousness opens. The contents are absorbed emotionally and unconsciously into one‘s awareness, to then continue working in the subconscious, to be reflected upon alone or with others at the right moment. Deflateable, an object is deprived of air to allow it a kind of „exhale.“ As a result, the objects within begin to move, approaching the viewers, only to withdraw again. The sculpture is artificially „brought to life“ in order to connect with the viewer through their own empathy. A cycle of tension (vacuuming) and relaxation (letting go through stopping the vacuuming) emerges, imitating the living in order to turn the viewers‘ gaze inward. The body itself becomes an individual instrument of insight.

In 2020, the Canadian Women’s Foundation introduced the emergency signal for domestic violence. This hand signal consists of three consecutive gestures and can be discreetly used during face-to-face contact. The installation entangle. deflate engages the senses and draws the viewer’s attention to this issue, making its significance understandable on various levels. Each digital copy of a real hand forms an enclave, connected to all the others through an irregular alternation between air and vacuum. This creates a communal foundation for fostering solidarity.