PROBE_PARTICLE_ENCOUNTER
by Kristin Weissenberger, Guenter Seyfried
Artists’ Bios
Kristin Weissenberger (1982, Voitsberg, AT) is an installation artist, material researcher and lecturer based in Vienna (AT). In her practice she encompasses different formats and media to examine our possibilities to interact with the non-human world. Through an ongoing investigation that destabilize the boundaries between science, craft, alchemy and technology, she explores the questions “How do we interact with the surrounding sphere of matter and organisms and how does this interaction shape our understanding of being in the world?”, “How can we create new forms of encounter in the ruined environment of the late Anthropocene?”
In her complex and multipart installations she often builds speculative landscapes or ecosystems, that invite to be examined, discussed and questioned by the visitor, who is encouraged to become a seeker. Her studio-based work focusses on experimental research with different kinds of materials, organisms and technologies. Inspired by New Materialism, Speculative Design, DIY Bio, Alchemy and Ceramic Tradition Weissenberger examines the hierarchical structures in human and matter exchange. She proposes new forms of material and techniques such as “Anthropogenite”, a human-made rock or stone or “Pyroglomerates”, assemblages driven by heat and ceramic agency. She also works with living organisms, such as mycelium, yeast and bacterial cellulose.
Weissenberger studied Scenography (University of applied Art Vienna, M.A. 2009), as well as Art History and African Studies (University of Vienna, 2001-2005). She is a Senior Lecturer at the Academy of fine Arts Vienna, where she is also Head of the Workshop for molding and casting Techniques.
Günter Seyfried is an Austrian artist, who lives and works in Vienna. He has a background in medicine and psychology, which he studied at the University of Vienna, and has strong links to the fine arts, digital art, and media art, having graduated from the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Department of Digital Art). He is teaching at the New Design University in St. Pölten, department of manual and material culture. He combines science and art education and develops projects as an independent artist, participating in national and international exhibitions and publications. He is a founding member of pavillon_35 — Gesellschaft für wissenschaftsbasierte Kunst.
Contact info
Email: gh.seyfried [at] gmail [dot] com
The project " probe_encounter_particle " is an artistic, process-oriented research, started within the Ars Bioarctica Residency Program at the research station Kilpisjärvi in Finland’s Northwest, organized by SOLU / Bioart Society.
The objects provide architectural properties for lichens, mosses, fungi, insects and others. The objects will be part of different environments for years. Thus, they will build multiform relationships with people, animals and other environmental phenomena. The journey from Vienna to Kilpisjärvi, a slow approach to the research station is captured artistically several places along the way.
The objects consist of a system of ceramic tiles, which are combined into larger installations. These biomimicry-inspired surfaces provide barbs, nests, recesses and hiding places. The project is a long-term experiment, too.
In 5 years the objects will be revisited and collected, in order to see the results and what has been "absorbed" by them, and was "taken" from them, to see, to process and again to represent artistically.
