Gefüge / cloud

Eröffnung: 

Friday, 16. May 2025 - 20:00

Laufzeit: 

16/05/2025 to 29/08/2025
esc medien kunst labor Gefuege Christine Schoerkhuber

The kinetic sculpture Gefüge/Cloud is an amorphous structure made of metal mesh in which a momentary social constellation manifests itself, but which also follows its own “pulsating logic”. The mesh reacts to changes in the electrical field caused by the presence of people and other factors in the space.

In contrast to the heaviness of the metal, a floating lightness is formed in the sculpture from a seemingly random accumulation of fine, electrically conductive threads in motion. Electricity is not just a tool or means to an end, it is a material and physical medium that functions as a central player in the artistic object. According to Donna Haraway, it is an inorganic negotiating partner in processes and structures.

 

The metal mesh acts as a large-scale capacitive sensor and reacts to changes in the electrical field caused by the touch and presence of people. Gefüge/Cloud is therefore a sculpture in which human presence, electricity and communication movements affect the control of motors. These generate breathing movements that vary in intensity and direction and inscribe themselves into the form of the metal fabric over a longer period of time - the fabric mutates, as it were, into living matter.

This apparent essentiality of the structure ultimately reflects the reference system of an anthropomorphic interpretation. However, the installation is released from any claim to solid functionality and predictability and easily gets out of control when internal and external stimuli overlap.

 

Gefüge/Cloud originates from a series of objects in which Christine Schörkhuber works on questions of communication technology, social dynamics, haptics and virtual gestures by means of formally abstracted installative translations into a “rough materiality” (C.S.). In the case of Gefüge/Cloud, the metal mesh becomes an analogy of the network that emerges physically and virtually in a social space between people in the dynamics of ephemeral encounters and interactions. Even the most frequently touched object, the touchscreen of a cell phone, works with the high-tech application of this principle. The transfer of this principle to aesthetic, expansive forms played a role in the formal considerations for the series.