26 June–14 July 2013
Opening: 25 June, 19.30h
University of Applied Arts Vienna
Künstlerhaus Wien,
Karlsplatz 5, 1010 Vienna
Hours: Every day except Monday 10–18h,
Thursday 10–10h
[email protected]
T + 43 1711 33 2161
The Essence 2013 shows works of all departments during 2012–2013. The annual exhibition is the highpoint of that academic year. Spotlighting the semester themes, it reflects the multiplicity of artistic disciplines and frequent crossings of media boundaries found at the “Angewandte.”
Public images of individual appearance
The department of Graphics and Printmaking foregrounds the topic of public images, which have come to play a determining role in establishing the worldview of our communication society. Public Image by János Mohácsi experiments with the public perception of individual appearance. Oversized drawings show self-portraits with slight variations, which are sufficient to provoke diverging categorizations. Self-questioning becomes the questioning of the perceptions of others; the drawing becomes a copy. In full size, the functioning of the poster image and its power over us become tangible. When the images are moved through the air, however, their fleeting nature also becomes readily apparent. What remains are the images that have made their way into our collective memory.
The objects developed in the department Digital Art grew out of artistic-experimental research. In the installation Spatially Apprehended Will of the Epoch, Nothing Elseby David Razzi, a variety of media converge in a hybrid artifact. Projected as a computer animation onto a photo print, an image of Mies van der Rohe’s 1931 prototypical model room serves as a dispositif, becoming a “scene of the action” in which proportions are thrown out of kilter. The material goods that gradually fill the spatial environ provide clues regarding the changing living situations of the human subjects.
Migratory birds use the earth’s magnetic field for orientation when they fly south from their nesting grounds in Céline Stuger’s project Birdhouse at the department TransArts. They fly without visual contact to the earth’s surface. Variations in the intensity of the magnet lines of force alter certain molecules in the animals’ retinas, allowing them to call up a flight plan before the inner eye. The object consists of 6mm-thick steel plates assembled without the use of screws. Together with the battery, the spool of copper wire wound around the iron post forms an electromagnet. Connecting the cable creates a magnetic field with a strength of 0.5 amperes.
Movement as an architectural form of expression
In an endeavor to explore alternative possibilities of movement as a new architectural form of expression the Studio Greg Lynn at the Institute for Architecture focused on projects experimenting with dynamic structures involving volume transformations on the scale of entire buildings. During the winter semester, a sport complex was designed in the United Arab Emirates, whereby three event facilities of varying dimensions had to be covered. During the summer semester, the same assignment was applied to a “flagship store” in Tokyo-Ginza. Both projects gave rise to the same basic idea of a structural interior in continual transformation, and in the urban context of a dynamic silhouette on a scale that is seldom encountered in architecture.
On-site research & site-specific exhibits
Students of Art & Science encounter specific lines of question and methods, but first cooperative researchers in partner institutions. To present the results of the project’s development phase in January 2013, Art & Science students have in 14/16, On-site Research – Micro-exhibits at Six Places shown site-specific work at the partner institutions. These efforts form a network of micro-exhibits, tracing the expanded space of a transdisciplinary laboratory.
In the site-specific micro-exhibit Fragments, Anita Peretti presents reflections on the waiting area of the Department of Radiology at the Vienna General Hospital. She focuses on the expectations of the patients in the waiting area, and the ways in which these can be influenced. In showing postcards, playing cards, flyers and a lab coat, Peretti exhibits objects that are specially designed to make a statement about the image of the hospital in the media.
