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Artistic Research

What does it mean to conduct artistic research today?

Research Presentations at AIL

TOPIC CONTENT:

Exhibition View: Reverse Imagining Vienna

This Is Not a Glacier

MorphoPoly

SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Exhibition View: Threads of Life

Exhibition View: Holobiont. Life is Other

Lighthouse

Exhibition View: Labor der Plötzlichkeit. Elektrische Funken und Entladungen

Exhibition View: Conceptual Joining – Wood Structures from Detail to Utopia

Conceptual Joining: Backstage Report

AIL has been an interdisciplinary platform at the intersection of art, science and research since its foundation in 2014. AIL supports the realization of projects which highlight the in-between spaces that are the result of the interplay of different disciplines. Experiencing, understanding, learning and unlearning as well as rethinking relationships and interactions play a crucial part in making AIL a flexible and open space.

AIL presents projects from the field of Artistic Research on a regular basis, covering all states of research and a variety of formats; and even works in progress. As a complementary understanding of research alongside traditionally academic ones, Artistic Research can expand epistemological questions, especially with regard to intersectional problems.

Find here upcoming dates and selected projects from the past.

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Exhibition View: Reverse Imagining Vienna

Anthropogenic Mass and Its Speculative Futures

Research Presentation from May 2024

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The exhibition Reverse Imagining Vienna is the final presentation of the artistic research project of the same name. Sculptures, scientific analyses of the nine anthropogenic materials and the first volume of a publication containing the resulting literary contributions are on display. Four readings by the participating authors will take place as part of the exhibition.

Download the publication here

Since 2020, the global stock of man-made mass has exceeded the total sum of biomass on Earth – around 90 percent of which is building materials. In the project Reverse Imagining Vienna, two sculptors and nine writers took a Viennese Gründerzeit building and the Prater Bridge, which crosses over the Danube, as material and speculative anchors in which to gain perspectives on sustainable relationships with inanimate matter. Referring to so-called reverse engineering, the two structures were deconstructed and recomposed in a historical, material-analytical, poetic and visionary way using reverse imagining.

Over a two year period, the project brought together national and international experts from the disciplines of geology, physics, ecology, urban morphology, transport sciences, evolutionary biology, literature and sculpture. The nine anthropogenic materials most relevant to the case studies were identified and analyzed in terms of cultural history, environmental science and social metabolism, from extraction to recycling management and emissions. Samples of material allowed conclusions to be drawn about their respective origins; the geological formation and potential futures were discussed in lectures by the participating scientists and contextualized for further speculative processing. In this way, images of varied futures were created with a time horizon that extends from the present and spans into the geological distance.

Writers:
Ann Cotten, Elias Hirschl, Jakob Pretterhofer, Julia Grillmayr, Fiston Mwanza Mujila, Neslihan Yakut, Nika Pfeifer, Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala

Scientists:
Angelika Psenner, Barbara Laa, Filipa L. Sousa, Fridolin Krausmann, Jan Zalasiewicz, Johannes Weber, Josepha Edbauer, Michael Wagreich, Peter Fichtinger, Sebastian Hafner, Tanja Traxler, Tess Posch

Project management and sculpure:
Christoph Weber, Nikolaus Eckhard

This exhibition was part of Klima Biennale 2024

Image by © Part of the project team. Reverse Imagining Vienna

All images: Lea Dörl

Special thanks to Bundesdenkmalamt – Kartause Mauerbach

research presentation

Opening: 26 Jan 2024, 19:00

Running: 26 Jan 2024 – 02 Feb 2024

This Is Not a Glacier

Thickening Description for Thinning Ice 

Glaciers are often portrayed as icons of global warming because of their physical loss through melting and the loss of climate records stored in glacial ice. If we take a step back from what they have become symbols for, what can we unlearn and learn from being with a glacier?

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Glaciers are often portrayed as icons of global warming because of their physical loss through melting and the loss of climate records stored in glacial ice. From a historical perspective, we can see that they in fact gained value through different narratives: as natural hazards, as sublime landscapes, as scientific laboratories, as sites for recreation and mountaineering, and as remote places left to conquer. These narratives, and the ideologies and power mechanisms that they embody, are hidden behind the  ‘endangered glacier’ narrative of today (Carey 2007) making it a treacherous portrayal in the fight with global warming.

If we take a step back from what they have become symbols for, what can we unlearn and learn from being with a glacier?

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Applying dilettantism as a method of joining scientific and artistic research, we deliberately acknowledge the difficulties of knowing the glacier and interacting with it in a non-exploitive way. We search to be affected, recalibrating our thought patterns and habitual reactions to achieve unconventional data collection. 

After days of dilly dallying, lollygagging and bracing the glacial climate we welcome you to our symposium and exhibition to sit together, share observations, ask questions, and reevaluate preconceptions about the glacier’s being and our own complicity in the destruction of this landscape. Using our own field research at the Suldenferner as a starting point, the aim of our event is to share reports and materials from the glacier, through discursive and spatial means, and expand on these experiences with a curated program of invited guests. It is an attempt at a more multifaceted, heterogenous and thicker description of a glacier, beyond its current reductive stereotype.

Accompanying symposium:

26 Jan, 15:00–18:00

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Exhibition and field research by

Chloë Lalonde (Artist, Writer & Educator), Lindsey Nicholson (Artist & Glaciologist), Sabrina Rosina (Artist & Vegetation Ecologist), Sophie Olivia Taleja Schmidt (Artist & Surface Designer), Márton Zalka (Multidisciplinary Designer & Visual Researcher)

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Initiated by

Brishty Alam (Senior Artist, University of Applied Arts Vienna), Valerie Deifel (Senior Scientist, University of Applied Arts Vienna) & Lindsey Nicholson (Assistant Professor, Institute of Atmospheric & Cryospheric Sciences/Centre for Climate, University of Innsbruck)

Photos: Marton Zalka

research presentation

25 Oct 2023, 15:00

MorphoPoly

Building, research and learning games on the question of the city model

How can we plan, design and inhabit urban existence differently – and for multiple living species and life forms? What is a model and how can we understand models differently and understand other models?

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morphoPoly is a process-oriented project in the field of artistic research. Several groups create city models and other designs from diverse materials and in diverse media for a performative, multi-sensory conception of contemporary urban existence. These designs evolve in the context of a ‘gamification’ that is itself part of the process.

At various locations in Vienna, the team of morphoPoly organized building, research and learning games on the question of the city model.

Which models we can design for the urban upheavals that are already underway? What is a model, what can a model do, how can we understand models differently and understand other models?

How can we plan, design and inhabit urban existence differently – and for multiple living species and life forms?

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morphoPoly has, during its first period (2021–2023), undergone a complex process involving the planning and monitoring of building (and dissolving) model cities using various materials, ranging from Lego and toy bricks to everyday leftovers. 

The initial builders were children aged 6 till 12, with some of them collaborating with us throughout the entire process. The project evolved within fluid structures, bridging the realms of Social Design and Zentrum Fokus Forschung. It combined the animating, almost therapeutic qualities of hands-on building and tinkering with transdisciplinary, multi-sensory research on our perception of cities, encompassing not only utopian but also real urban environments. 

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One branch of the project was dedicated to creating a board game meant to demonstrate the ecological challenges inherent in contemporary and immediate future city planning. Participants were instructed to transform the over-crowded cities of the 20th century with streets planned for car traffic into an urban development fit for the 21st century. 

All those models and model games building on each other, but also wildly diverse and built in different venues, from the UNIDO and the Austrian Filmmuseum to the Poolbar Festival in Feldkirch, ask for a narrative bridge that was provided by an on-going project of (often hilarious) story telling. 

At this event, we aim to present the project using audio-visual materials, which are the only lasting remnants of many long-dissolved cities, and the necessary hooks for the narrative. Additionally, we can exhibit objects and designs created by children (and others) that have the potential to endure the permanent dissolution process. Those designs will be offered to those interested in preserving them. The objects come with narratives of bold imagination, spanning from fanciful prison systems to luxurious swimming pools.

Thus the story telling arc of the project can go on in each household that will host a piece of morphoPoly.

All images: Simone Carneiro

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SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS

Exploring the Potentials of Multisensory Scenography for Systems Awareness

Artistic research project by artist duo MUELLER-DIVJAK and AIL, starting September 2023

The artist and researcher duo MUELLER-DIVJAK (Dr. Jeanette Müller and Dr. Paul Divjak), who conceived and initiated SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS, is working at the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab / University of Applied Arts (project leader: Mag. Alexandra Graupner) with international artists and systems scientists to form experiential spaces by artistic means (scenographies) and to create sensory impressions that help us to better understand and resonate with living systems.

During the project essential principles of living systems will be transformed into olfactory, auditory and tactile artworks / artefacts and used experimentally.

The result of SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS is supposed to be a multisensory scenography that can be utilized in different places and that enables an embodied learning experience for diverse users, so that they can perceive themselves as a living system, capable of taking action, embedded in living systems. This also in terms of a systemic change – on an individual, societal and structural level – for the implementation and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals / SDGs, which represent a universal compass for the shaping of a life-affirming social, ecological and economic transformation of our world.

‘Through meditation and art, we can connect with our mother earth and reaffirm our cooperative nature, recognizing the environment as part of ourselves.’

(Sulak Sivaraksa – The Wisdom of Sustainability, 2009)

We live in a world that is permeated by systems, whether in nature, technology, business or society. A deep understanding of systems is crucial to solving complex problems, making better decisions, anticipating future developments, coping with change and creating a sustainable future.

It is important to understand that everything in our world is part of a larger system and is interrelated, from biological cells, humans and animals to trees and governments. We have an innate ability to perceive systems and their interdependencies, but often unlearn this through linear thinking, fragmented perception and mechanistic world views.

The project explores – with a special focus on the senses of smell, hearing and touch – how direct sensory experiences by staging olfactory, auditory and haptic artworks and stimuli artistically, i.e. by way of specially arranged spaces, can contribute to heightening our awareness of nature and to developing a deep understanding of living systems and imparting systems literacy.

Image by © Soil Performance by MUELLER-DIVJAK at AIL

SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS expands the field of scenography as a means for arts-based innovation and transformative research and supports systems science education, from systems sensing to systems literacy.

Living systems encompass cells, organisms, ecosystems, and global biospheres. They are characterized by complex interactions and adaptive mechanisms. Their study allows for a better understanding of life on various levels and provides critical insights for addressing global challenges.

The SENSING LIVING SYSTEMS project is based on the General Systems Theory (GST), developed by by Austrian-American biologist Ludwig von Bertalanffy in the 1940s. GST is an interdisciplinary framework that seeks to identify common principles across all types of systems. It emphasizes a holistic approach, viewing systems as more than the sum of their parts, with a focus on the interactions and relationships between components. It applies to open (living) systems that interact with their environment, enabling self-organization, adaptation, and the pursuit of goals. The theory also highlights the importance of hierarchies, feedback loops, and homeostasis, offering a universal framework for understanding complex systems across various disciplines.

This arts-based research project is funded by FWF PEEK DOI: 10.55776/AR 776

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Exhibition View: Threads of Life

Textiles in Medicine and the Arts

Some insights from our current exhibition still on till 14 Jul 2023

About the multifaceted relationship between textiles, medicine and the arts. Presentation of historical and artistic positions that enter into a dialogue and generate productive tensions.

Image by © Installation view. The exhibition took place in the right space of AIL.

Artists:

Sonja Bäumel, Pascale Maxime Ballieul, Camille Borchert, Ida Flora Frantal, Raja Goltz, Barbara Graf, Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond, Elizabeth McGlynn, Ute Neuber, Katharina Sabernig, Hannah Schwab, Yuliia Strykovska, Leo Ruben Enosch Zellweger

Curatorial team:

Monika Ankele (Medical University of Vienna), Barbara Graf (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Katrin Pilz (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Digital History, Vienna), Monika Pietrzak-Franger (University of Vienna), Barbara Putz-Plecko (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Katharina Sabernig (University of Applied Arts Vienna), Georg Vasold (University of Vienna).

The curatorial team is part of the transdisciplinary working group History of Medicine and Medical/Health Humanities of the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Image by © Exhibition view at AIL
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Selected Work:

Image by © Katharina Sabernig, Darm, 2016
Image by © Camille Borchert, Schnittstelle, 2022
Image by © Barbara Graf, Tuch 7 – Naht, 2014
Image by © Barbara Graf, Ohrobjekt mit Tasche, 2005
Image by © Ruth Anderwald + Leonhard Grond, Dizzy Dress, 2023
Image by © Pascale Maxime Ballieul, Making Kin with My Fictional Queer Ancestor: Being It Being They Being the Thing Being Frankenstein Being the Monster, or "Oh Jesus Chris, Lucifer is a Faggot!", 2020
Image by © Sonja Bäumel, Textured Self, 2011

Although textiles have been indispensable to medicine since time immemorial, their role in this context has been understudied so far. From the surgical thread, wound dressings, wipes, pads, and protective clothing to the hospital bed, the practices of healing are unimaginable without them. But the relationship between textiles in the arts, wellbeing and health is much broader. It includes, but is not restricted to, the use of such techniques as knitting, crocheting, weaving or braiding in the development of cardiovascular grafts or surgical meshes. The use of textiles is also ambivalent. They have found use in psychiatric institutions for the bodily restraint of patients, but patients also used them for designing their environment and creating body wrappings as survival strategies. Textiles can also be a source of ill-health: Beyond the addition of harmful substances during their production, textiles have been used in fashion for centuries to shape, deform and discipline the body according to ideals of beauty. Practitioners from the fields visual arts and artistic research reflect on this complicated relationship in manifold ways. Artists use fabrics to evoke the vulnerability of the human body, its ongoing decay and imminent death, and also to highlight the complexity of interhuman relationships. They draw attention to (self-)care, understanding the human anatomy, perceiving one’s own corporeality, and to the ways in which textiles can become an existential embodiment. Beyond the metaphorical “Threads of Life”, suturing connects the craft of surgery with that of tailoring. The exhibition spotlights the multifaceted relationships between textiles, medicine and the arts. It brings historical objects and contemporary artistic positions into a dialogue that generates productive tensions.

Photos: Paul Pibernig

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Exhibition View: Holobiont. Life is Other

Presentation of bodies, environments, texts, media, machines and biological organisms condensed into pictorial spaces / Oct 2022–Jan 2023

Curated by Judith Reichart, Lucie Strecker, Thomas Feuerstein, Jens Hauser

Exhibition view, please note the following presentation does only show parts of the artworks from the exhibition.
On Microperformativity, Wall paper based on the Journal Performance Research 25 (3), edited by Jens Hauser and Lucie Strecker with two monitors.

In the context of the exhibition, a multimedia wall newspaper presented artistic and theoretical contributions on the potential of microscopic physiological, chemical or biotechnological processes, taken from the journal ‘On Microperformativity’.

Microperformative positions ask how artistic methods can critically engage with technologies that manipulate life at the microscopic and molecular levels, merging around bio- and digital media. For this finissage the contributions by international authors of the special volume of the journal Performance Research 25 (3), ‘On Microperformativity’ were presented and discussed. The term microperformativity denotes a current trend in theories of performativity and performative artistic practices to destabilize human scales (both spatial and temporal) as the dominant plane of reference and to emphasize biological and technological micro-aspects that relate the invisibility of the microscopic to the intangibility of the macroscopic. Investigations into microperformativity redefine what art, philosophy, and the technosciences now consider ‘body’ at a time when performance art is moving toward a generalized and ubiquitous performativity in art.

Lucie Strecker – Brains’ Shit for Shit Brains (2020) / With literary text by KT Zakravsky

Brain's Shit for Shit Brains speculates on the importance of microbial diversity in sociopolitical contexts. Not only biobanks have recently been advertising the shit of celebrities, but pharmacological and medical research is also investigating the importance of microorganisms in the stool and their influence on mental and cognitive functions via the so-called microbiota-gut-brain axis.

Lucie Strecker designed a shooting gallery in which a microbial suppository becomes the grand prize. Porcelain anuses are the targets, placed in a coordinate system of social positions according to the French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu.

Lucie Strecker collected stool samples from people from different socio-political spaces and extracted microbes from them. They were preserved as a ‘pharmakon.’ The pharmakon is ambivalent in its effect: as magic and power it can be – simultaneously or consecutively – healing and damaging. For this installation, the literary artist KT Zakravsky wrote a literary game manual.

Henrik Plenge Jakobsen – Freiheit ist ein Geheimnis (2021). Teaching installation with a blackboard, bench, mylar curtains, stones from the Rickbach, Hörbranz.

The installation by Henrik Plenge Jakobson is an imaginative lesson with rocks from the lake waiting for their teacher to appear so she can begin her lesson on where the concept of freedom is hidden. It will likely be a complex session about existence and its relationship to the environment, and where exactly the cracks of emancipation can be found within that relationship.

ECOLALIA by Klaus Spiess / Ulla Rauter / Emanuel Gollob / Rotraud Kern (2022)

'The performance installation ECOLALIA uses artificial intelligence to uncover the complex balance between the needs of our oral microbiome and a future language. Our lab data show that the tonal, vibrating voice that unfolds primarily in singing and moaning stimulates microbes to grow, while the noise of alphabetic speech, as amplified by whispering, stresses oral microbes and causes them to die.’ — ECOLALIA makes a statement about the simultaneous loss of diversity of microbiota and languages. It shows in real time that the oral flora uses vowels differently from consonants for its growth. The flourishing of the flora, supported by artificial intelligence and a speech synthesiser, suggests new sounds for new languages.

Thomas Feuerstein, GREEN HYDRA (2021). Hydras (many-headed Hydra viridissima), green algae (Chlorella vulgaris), glass, plastic, pump technology, refrigerator

HYDRA (2021) by Thomas Feuerstein is a mouth-blown glass sculpture in the form of a many-headed hydra, inside of which freshwater polyps – called Hydra viridissima – are cultivated. The hydras live in a chamber of the sculpture filled with water and enter into symbiosis with chlorella algae. Through their transparent bodies, the chlorophyll of the microalgae glows and colors them green. Both creatures mutually complement their animal and plant metabolism and use light and plankton as a source of energy and food. – Symbiotic communities have gained metaphorical prominence in recent years in the debate over new models of society.

Maja Smrekar, Opus et Domus (2018). Glass house, metal spinning wheel, serotonin, dog hair, human hair, microfluidic lab system, hot plate

Maja Smrekar includes her Hybrid Family in the Opus et Domus by producing yarn from her dog companion’s and her own body hair that she collected since 2017, spun into a social fabric that was defined by their hybrid relationship, including artifially produced serotonine, an odoriferous mixture, combining serotonin taken from the blood of the artist with that taken from her dog. The advanced technology implemented into the installation serves to underline the contrast to the symptoms of the ever regressing society. The archetypal relationship depicted in this tableau vivant thus paraphrases a conclusion that the roots of politics are older than humanity; a thought suggesting that nowadays hybrid processes in society are solely political statements.

Close Reading – David Berry/Lucie Strecker (2021). Microphone stand, perforated plate, glass petri dishes, nutrient medium, PH index, Journal of Performance Research 25(3).

Close Reading by David Berry/Lucie Strecker (2021) — In literary studies, close reading refers to the careful interpretation of a passage of text, a precise reading that traces all textual details, nuances of meaning, and linguistic effects, focusing on the text as an object. Such an approach places great emphasis on the specific as opposed to the general, paying close attention to individual words, syntax, and the order of sentences and words.

As an installation, Close Reading is an invitation to visitors to select a short passage from the journal, read it aloud, and ‘discuss’ the Petri dish which is placed in the microphone stand with their breath and the microbes in it. The petri dish is closed and the quote is written on the lid. From that moment on, the individual microorganisms continue to grow on the nutrient medium over the period of the exhibition.

‘We’ experience ‘us’ as transitory beings drifting between digital and molecular worlds and sense the twisting of boundaries within us as the possibility of a new language beyond a symbolic distance from the world. With the exhibition Holobiont. Life is Other, the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab presents bodies, environments, texts, media, machines and biological organisms condensed into pictorial spaces – each of which represents a narrative about another life and about the lives of others.

More about the exhibition

With contributions by

Art Orienté Objet, Irini Athanassakis, David Berry, Julia Borovaya, Adam Brown, Juan M. Castro & Akihiro Kubota, Tagny Duff, Thomas Feuerstein, Karmen Franinovic, Ana Maria Gomez Lopez, Luis Hernan/Pei-Ying Lin/Carolina Ramirez-Figueroa, Hideo Iwasaki, Henrik Plenge Jakobsen, Eduardo Kac, Roman Kirschner, Lynn Margulis/Dorion Sagan/Bruce Clarke/David McConville, Yann Marussich, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, ORLAN, Špela Petrič, Chris Salter, Maja Smrekar, Klaus Spiess/Ulla Rauter/Emanuel Gollob, Lucie Strecker/KT Zakravsky, Tina Tarpgaard, Paul Vanouse, M R Vishnuprasad, Peter Weibel, and authors of the special issue On Micorperformativity, Performance Research: A Journal of the Performing Arts, 2020, 25 (3).

Scenography: Wolfgang Fiel, Institute for cultural policy

The exhibition was curated originally for the Magazin 4 exhibition space in Bregenz. The content was adapted and expanded for display at Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab (AIL).

All photos: Lea Dörl

research presentation

Opening: 20 Mar 2019, 17:00

Running: 20 Mar 2019 – 06 Mar 2019

Lighthouse

Light as the building block of the future museum by architect Andrea Graser in cooperation with artist Friedrich Biedermann

The essence of light is to define our perception of art and space.

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Lighthouse is an installation that plays an active role in the discourse surrounding the ‘future museum’. Its light source is not static but dynamic and always changing. Artists, curators and architects develop a setting based on the preliminary findings from the current research into ‘light as the building block of the future museum’ by architect Andrea Graser.

Light is the key design element within the white cube.

The essence of light is to define our perception of art and space. An interplay of art, space and light. A 24-hour time lapse. Between light and darkness. Between ambient light and signal lights. Putting the connection of material space and substantial light to the test.

In cooperation with artist Friedrich Biedermann. The image shows part of his sculpture Lighthouse.

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Photos: Studio Okular

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Exhibition View: Labor der Plötzlichkeit. Elektrische Funken und Entladungen

Different daily constellations will offer a new way of looking at the material of of lightning or electricity from 2016

The highly charged collection of items will diffuse over the course of the event

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In a laboratory and experimental setting, objects will be collected that are either products of the effects of lightning or electrically charged themselves – ranging from the historical electrostatic generator, fulgurites and tesla coils to contemporary artworks.

The highly charged collection of items will diffuse over the course of the event – the exhibition objects will be spread and scattered across the space of AIL. The different daily constellations will offer a new way of looking at the material. Additional discursive formats will expand the field of research and explore the phenomenon of electrostatic discharge in other practices and areas of expertise.

Contributors:
Anita Bauer & Günther Oberleitner & Nadja Schreier, Dietmar Brehm, Chris Burden, Laura Egger-Karlegger & Sarah Podbelsek, Judith Fegerl, Nikolaus Gansterer, Anna Jordan & Maria Mäser, Uli Kühn & Robert Zimmermann, Peter Kutin, David Moises & Chris Janka, Stephan Pack, Lisl Ponger, Alexander Trnka, among others.

Lead: Christoph Kaltenbrunner & Katrin Nora Kober

In cooperation with Anita Bauer, Konrad Cernohous, Anna Jordan, Sarah Radatz, Philip Röttl, Stefan Ryba, Nadja Schreier, Martina Zodl, among others.

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Photos: Martina Lajczak

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Exhibition View: Conceptual Joining – Wood Structures from Detail to Utopia

Investigation on wood constructions in a series of structural and spatial experiments from 2019

The exhibition focuses on two projects that explore the relationship between material, structure and space

Exhibition space with wood constructions from the exhibition | Image by ©
Kigumi tower | Image by ©
Wooden constructions on tables | Image by ©
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Details floor, markers and wood branch standing | Image by ©
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Model for Wood construction | Image by ©
Team behind Conceptual Joining standing in front of a wooden tower | Image by © Team behind Conceptual Joining

Conceptual Joining – Wood Structures from Detail to Utopia was shown at AIL in October 2019.

The artistic research project Conceptual Joining investigates wood constructions in a series of structural and spatial experiments. By combining the intelligence of traditional craftsmanship with the potential of computational techniques different design methods and techniques are developed.

The exhibition focuses on two projects that explore the relationship between material, structure and space. Branch Formations is about utilizing naturally grown wood elements as components of a spatial framework. In Interlocking Spaces joining principles, derived from traditional Japanese Architecture, are expanded by digital systematics, forming complex configurations. The working process and results of 2.5 years of research are presented. Full scale installations, models, videos and Augmented Reality allow for an interactive experience of an architectural speculation.

Projektteam:
Leitung: Christoph Kaltenbrunner

Forschungsteam: Lukas Allner, Daniela Kröhnert, Philipp Reinsberg, Mechthild Weber

MentorInnen: Karin Raith, Anja Jonkhans und Clemens Preisinger

Ein Projekt gefördert von österreichischer Wissenschaftsfonds (FWF) / PEEK Programm

Photos: Zara Pfeifer

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Conceptual Joining: Backstage Report

From our Newsletter 2019 (Interview in German)

Daniela Kröhnert and Lukas Allner giving us insights in their research project and experiences

figure of stacking system | Image by ©

Das Forschungsteam von Conceptual Joining zeigte im Winter 2019 in Form einer Ausstellung im AIL ihre Arbeit und Ergebnisse, im Rahmen dessen haben wir Daniela Kröhnert and Lukas Allner gebeten uns einige Hintergründe und Erfahrungen zum Projekt zu beleuchten:

Wir haben im Grunde untersucht wie das Wesen des Materials Holz raum- und strukturbildend erlebbar wird. Unsere Überlegungen begannen im Detail, in Prinzipien und Systemen zunächst losgelöst von einem konkreten Gebrauchszweck.

Wir wollen mit den entstandenen Experimenten Spekulationen über eine materialorientierte Architektur anregen, die auf eine mögliche Funktion und Deutung aus dem sich ergebenden Potential verweisen.

Team at work | Image by ©

Wie setzt sich euer Team zusammen, wer kommt aus welchem Kontext?

Wir sind alle Architekten, mit verschiedenen Hintergründen und Expertisen, zum Beispiel ist Philipp Reinsberg auch Zimmermann und Daniela Kröhnert Spezialistin für CNC Fabrikation. Unsere Mentoren sind Professor*innen und Unterrichtende an der Angewandten in verschiedenen Bereichen mit weiteren Kompetenzen zum Beispiel als Ingenieur*innen, Industriedesigner und Wissenschaftler*innen.

Unser Team wird angeleitet von Prof. Christoph Kaltenbrunner, momentan Professor am Institut für Kunstpädagogik und leitet die Abteilung Darstellung, Architektur und Environment und vereint den Architekten, Produktdesigner und Maschinenbauer in einer Person.

Das Forschungsteam sind Lukas Allner, Daniela Kröhnert, Philipp Reinsberg und Mechthild Weber, alle studierte Architekt*innen, mit unterschiedlichen Vorausbildungen und Spezialisierungen. Philipp ist gelernter Zimmerer, Daniela Spezialistin in Digitaler Fabrikation, Lukas Stärken liegen vor allem im Entwurf und der konzeptionellen Entwicklung unserer Experimente und sorgt für eine kohärente Umsetzung der Forschungsagenda, Mechthild ist Expertin wenn es darum geht die komplexen Prozesse in der Bauausführung mit der Kunst zu verbinden und steuert unsere Forschungsagenda indem sie für den Wissensaustausch zwischen allen Beteiligten (auch Forschungspartner*innen) sorgt. Zusätzlich werden wir betreut durch die Mentor*innen, Prof. Karin Raith und Anja Jonkhans aus der Abteilung Baukontruktion des Instituts für Architektur und Clemens Preisinger, Bauingenieur und Entwickler der parametrischen Tragwerkssoftware Karmaba3D.

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Wie entsteht so ein Forschungs-Projekt?

Es gibt vom österreichischen Wissenschaftsfond (FWF) ein Förderprogramm zu künstlerischer Grundlagenforschung (PEEK). Es werden Projekte von 2,5 Jahren Dauer gefördert. Das Tolle an diesem Programm ist die vollkommen ergebnisoffene Ausschreibung, als Forschende*r ist man also sehr frei in der Untersuchung von Fragestellungen. Wir haben uns als Gruppe von befreundeten ehemaligen Kommiliton*innen, zunächst zu dritt zusammengefunden, als wir die Themenstellung für den Förderungsantrag entwickelten, kamen die weiteren Team-Mitglieder dazu.

Der Ausgangspunkt war eine weitergeleitete Anfrage, ein Projektkonzept zu einem innovativen Klebstoff zu entwickeln. Durch die Auseinandersetzung mit dem Zusammenfügen von verschiedenen Materialien / Teilen (per Verklebung) kamen wir sehr schnell auf das Material Holz. Uns faszinierten einerseits die komplexen Materialeigenschaften und -formen, andererseits die vielfältige Kultur der Fügemethoden in der Handwerks- und Baukunst.

excursion to Japan | Image by ©

Ihr habt zur Recherche eine Exkursion nach Japan gemacht, was ist euch besonders in Erinnerung geblieben?

Besonders beeindruckend war wie gleichzeitig uralte Tradition und High Tech überall präsent sind. Die Einzigartigkeit der zeitgenössischen japanischen Architektur kommt auch daher, dass traditionelle mit futuristischen Ansätzen sich zu etwas Neuartigem verbinden.

Ein besonderes Erlebnis war wie traditionelle Zeder-Bäume aufwändig gezüchtet werden, um perfekt gerade Stämme zu bilden, diese Wälder wirken wie riesige Säulenhallen. Noch extremer ist die Kunst des “Daisugi”, einer speziellen Baumzucht, in der oben auf einer Art Mutterbaum gerade gewachsene Nebentriebe als Pfetten (eine Form von Dachlatten) für Teehäuser im spezifischen Sukiya-Stil wachsen gelassen werden. Herr Iwai, der allerletzte, der dieses Handwerk noch betreibt, hat uns großzügig in sein schönes uraltes Holzhaus zu einem traditionellen Tee eingeladen und Einblick in das alltägliche japanische Leben in einem Bergdorf nördlich von Kyoto gegeben. Überhaupt ist die Liebe zum Detail und zur Perfektion in allem spürbar.

preparing the wood | Image by ©
augmented reality in the exhibition | Image by ©

Welches Potential seht ihr in der Verbindung von Handwerk und neuer Technik?

Wir glauben dass mit den Möglichkeiten von Computern und Technologie mit hoher Irregularität und Komplexität umgegangen werden kann. Es ist nicht mehr unbedingt notwendig in gleichförmigen Standards zu denken, individuelle Realisierungen von Räumen und Objekten als Unikate sind möglich. Durch Technologie wird ein neuer Zugang zu Material und Handwerkskunst möglich.

robot and graphic working with wood | Image by ©

Daniela hatte mir im Vorfeld von "Robotic Production der Branch Formation" und "Augmented Reality Programmierung" geschrieben – Worum geht es hier genau, wie sieht der Arbeitsprozess aus?

Im Holzbau werden immer öfter computergesteuerte Maschinen und automatisierte Prozesse eingesetzt, diese ermöglichen eine komplexe Bearbeitung mit hoher Präzision. Solche CNC Maschinen, wie etwa eine automatische “Abbundanlage” werden dazu verwendet vorgefertigte Holzbalken herzustellen, die auf der Baustelle ohne grossen Aufwand montiert werden. Hauptsächlich werden so konventionelle ("konservative") Satteldächer hergestellt, wir sehen aber ein großes Potential für komplexe erlebbare Architekturen, die sich so realisieren lassen. Über die Dauer des Projektes haben wir verschiedene Prototypen von irregulären Stabstrukturen umgesetzt, einige davon sind in unserer Ausstellung zu sehen.

Heterogene Werkstücke wie Astgabeln lassen sich schwer mit herkömmlichen Maschinen bearbeiten, es gibt keine geraden Flächen oder gleiche Teile. Für diese Herausforderung ist die räumliche 7-Achs-Bearbeitung mit einem Roboterarm besonders interessant. Diese Maschinen kennt man vielleicht von vollautomatisierten Produktionsstraßen in der Autoindustrie, wo diese Roboter komplexe Arbeitsabläufe präzise ausführen. An den Arm können viele verschiedene Werkzeuge montiert werden.

Die Angewandte besitzt eine solche Maschine, wir haben für dieses Projekt eine spezielle Vorrichtung entwickelt, auf der Äste eingespannt werden. Nach einigen Versuchen hat sich ein Ablauf etabliert indem jedes Teil über drei Referenzpunkt eingemessen wird, wodurch die digitale 3D Geometrie mit dem physischen Objekt synchronisiert wird, anschließend wird mit einer Kettensäge bearbeitet. Vorrausgesetzt alle Dateien sind erstellt, dauert die Bearbeitung für ein Teil inklusive Befestigung und Einmessen 30 bis 40 min, der Roboter wird von einer Person bedient.

Als Alternative haben wir ein Verfahren entwickelt, in dem wir mit Hilfe einer Augmented Reality Anwendung auf einem Smartphone Äste von Hand bearbeiten können. Mit sogenannten AR Apps lassen sich virtuelle Informationen mit der physischen Umgebung überlagern. In unserem Fall haben wir dieses Werkzeug dazu genutzt virtuelle Umrisslinien der Verbindungsdetails auf die physischen Elemente zu projizieren, nachzuzeichnen und schließlich mit einfachen Handwerkzeugen (Handsäge, etc.) auszuschneiden. Dieser Prozess war sehr interessant für uns, weil wir darin das Potential sehen durch Computer Software mit einfachen, leicht verfügbaren Werkzeugen ein hochkomplexes Projekt zu realisieren.

Ähnliche AR Anwendungen haben wir auch verwendet, um die großen Gesamtstrukturen zusammenzusetzen und aufzubauen. Es gab keinerlei physische Pläne oder Zeichnungen, lediglich eine virtuelle Bauanleitung fuer ein 3D Puzzle.

The artistic research project Conceptual Joining investigates wood constructions in a series of structural and spatial experiments. By combining the intelligence of traditional craftsmanship with the potential of computational techniques different design methods and techniques are developed.

The exhibition focuses on two projects that explore the relationship between material, structure and space. Branch Formations is about utilizing naturally grown wood elements as components of a spatial framework. In Interlocking Spaces joining principles, derived from traditional Japanese Architecture, are expanded by digital systematics, forming complex configurations. The working process and results of 2.5 years of research are presented. Full scale installations, models, videos and Augmented Reality allow for an interactive experience of an architectural speculation.

Projektteam:
Leitung: Christoph Kaltenbrunner

Forschungsteam: Lukas Allner, Daniela Kröhnert, Philipp Reinsberg, Mechthild Weber

MentorInnen: Karin Raith, Anja Jonkhans und Clemens Preisinger

Ein Projekt gefördert von österreichischer Wissenschaftsfonds (FWF) / PEEK Programm

All Photos: Conceptual Joining
Questions by Eva Weber