Kurt Hentschläger

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Kurt Hentschläger (* 1960 in Linz ) is an Austrian artist living in New York . He creates immersive audiovisual installations and performances . He is visiting artist at the School of Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC; 2013–2015 and again since 2016).

Education and early career

From 1982 to 1985 Hentschläger studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with Peter Weibel . In 1983 he started exhibiting his work; initially surreal machine objects, later video and sound works as well as computer animations . In the early stages of his career he also worked under the name Kurt Kitzler.

Granular Synthesis

In 1991 Hentschläger founded the Duo Granular-Synthesis with the German artist Ulf Langheinrich in Vienna. The name refers to the technique of granular synthesis , which Hentschläger and Langheinrich applied to both sound and visual work. Her best-known multimedia installations and performances are model 5 (1994), areal (1997), noisegate (1998) and pol (1998). These installations work with disorienting projections, projected onto large screens, accompanied by a soundtrack created by means of granular synthesis - an installation designed to completely destabilize the viewer's senses. Hentschläger and Langheinrich sound out the limits of human perception and at the same time examine experimentally the aesthetics and effectiveness of the audiovisual. Her intensive installations evoke sensory overload, question perceptual capacities and demand an expansion of the outer limits of sensual perception.

The duo toured worldwide and several compilations of their works have been released on DVD. In 1995 Granular-Synthesis won the international biennial competition in Nagoya , Japan, and the duo were also awarded sponsorship prizes in Austria and the United States. Hentschläger continued his artistic work for Granular-Synthesis until 2003.

Solo work and content

Hentschläger himself describes his installations as “visceral and immersive”. A recurring theme in his work is the human body and its sensory perception processes. In his installations, for example, there are projections of humanoid beings, distorted, fogged images and optical disturbance effects. Kurt Hentschläger deals intensively with neuronal perception processes in the human brain, the process of processing external reality and the shaping of perception through fantasy and individual psychological structures. In the course of his interests, Hentschläger pursues acute psychology and neurology as well as their state of research in the field of contemporary art and culture. His contemporary works often focus on tensions between nature and artificiality in a dystopian to artificial reality.

Prices

Hentschläger received numerous awards and sponsorship awards, including the Qwartz New Media Art Award 2010 in Paris, the second prize at the FILE (Festival Internacional da Linguagem Eletrônica) Prix ​​Lux in São Paulo 2010 for ZEE , the Austrian federal sponsorship award for media art and the Chicago sponsorship award Studio. He was also commissioned to create the symphonic installation CORE as part of the official cultural program of the Olympic Summer Games in London 2012 .

Exhibitions

The exhibition venues for his work include: Art Basel in Basel , Art Basel Hong Kong, and Art Basel Miami Beach , Stedelijk Museum , Amsterdam; Halle am Berghain, Berlin; STRP Festival, Eindhoven; Mona Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart; Borusan Müzik Evi, Istanbul; ZKM , Karlsruhe; Lille 2004 - European Capital of Culture; the Laboratorio Arte Alameda, Mexico City; MAC Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal; Elektra Festival and Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT), Montreal; MoMA PS1 , New York; Wood Street Galleries, Pittsburgh; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; Romaeuropa Festival; National Museum for Contemporary Art, Seoul; O Art Center - Sculpture Art Center and Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah; ICC InterCommunication Center, Tokyo; Biennale Arte , Venice; Biennale Teatro, Venice; MAK Museum of Applied Arts , Vienna.

reception

Hentschläger's immersive works FEED, ZEE and SOL revolve around human perception and its psychology as well as the longing for sublime, emotional experiences. Their experimental and interdisciplinary character combines aspects of audiovisual installations, media performances and light architectures. FEED (2005) was commissioned by the Venice Theater Biennale. It begins with a projection of larger-than-life 3D bodies that appear to float in a weightless space. The work turns into an expansive installation of fog and stroboscopic light with a synchronized feedback-based and booming sound environment. This creates an intense physical experience: at the beginning the visitors look at a screen, only to later become the screen themselves. Confronted with a feeling of disorientation, they plunge into an almost referenceless, surprisingly beautiful world of light. Internal processes, often imagined images, are superimposed with retinal stimuli. ZEE (2008) dispenses with an introductory video projection and is quieter and more contemplative than FEED. Here the visitors step directly into a quasi psychedelic bath of light, can move around the room without ever reaching its end, enveloped by three-dimensional appearing, kaleidoscopically constantly reorganizing lights and minimal, atmospheric sound. FEED and ZEE cannot be photographed and are difficult to describe because the experiences are subjectively very different. Testimonials from visitors become a vehicle for understanding. Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle describes his ascent of ZEE as follows:

" Open the door to the main space and the fog confronts you as a permeable plenum. Once one enters it, the only sources of orientation are the feeling of the floor underfoot and a waist-level rope that, one is assured beforehand, circuits the space and eventually leads to the exit. In a matter of seconds, the strobe light and drubbing sound that pervade the fog overwhelm all other sensations, and even memory, inducing an almost sickening sense of imprisonment in immediacy. (...) The sole Compensation for this immersion is hallucinations - or so they seemed to me - of faintly pulsing kaleidoscopic geometry, fugitive crystalline figures that seemed to come from behind one's eyes. What a relief when the door handle at the exit finally materializes just beyond the rope's end. "

With his installations, Hentschläger aims to create an uplifting, lasting experience: "What interests me is an emotional process, and a romantic notion of seeking to instil something that is bigger than life and that makes you see a wider concept or longer trajectory."

In January 2017 the publication SPLENDID VOIDS - The Immersive Works of Kurt Hentschläger was published as the first monograph on Hentschläger, on the occasion of the premiere of SOL (2017) in the course of the CTM Festival in the Halle des Berghain in Berlin on January 27, 2017. SOL is the third work in a series of phenomenological works. Sol is an installation in complete darkness that generates stroboscopic flashes of light in order to subsequently trigger optical disturbance and image effects with which the recipient is confronted in the recurring darkness.

Due to the phenomenological nature of Hentschläger's work, which prevents photographic documentation, the publication pursues a graphic visualization strategy. The curator of SOL and editor of the monograph, Isabelle Meiffert, should be quoted here:

" Kurt Hentschläger's immersive works Sol, Zee and Feed begin with perceptual sensation, grounding the audience in the moment at hand. They ask for and instill a loss of control, transcend the boundaries between the observer and the observed and cannot be meaningfully documented, but must be experienced instead. The aim of this book is to look at the concepts and evoke the atmosphere of the works. "

The publication is published by Fern-Verlag and contains an essay by Roger Denson , who follows an intensive study of Hentschläger's work. For example, Denson deals with the topoi logic and phenomenological perception , which are opposing concepts in Hentschläger's works, so he creates his works deliberately without and against any logic in order to achieve the desired perception effect.

literature

  • Isabelle Meiffert: Splendid Voids. The Immersive Works of Kurt Hentschläger , with a contribution by G. Roger Denson. Distance Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95476-183-8 .
  • Isabelle Meiffert: Rendered Real - The Mediated Landscapes of Kurt Hentschläger , with a contribution by Daniel Rourke. Distance Verlag, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95476-217-0 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Kurt Hentschläger. Biography. In: kurthentschlager.com. Retrieved March 27, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Kurt Hentschläger Biography. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .
  3. ^ Richard Castelli: MATTER-LIGHT 2 (exhibition catalog) . Borusan Holding, Istanbul 2011.
  4. ↑ Christopher Philips: Machine Dreams . In: Art America . November 1999.
  5. ↑ Granular Synthesis Compilations on DVD. IMMERSIVE WORKS.DVD (10 years of Granular Synthesis), published by the ZKM Karlsruhe; INDEX.DVD - Granular-Synthesis, contains the works "Reset", 2001, 25 min, and "Model 5", 1994, 30 min, published by ARGE INDEX (Medienwerkstatt Wien & sixpackfilm). Retrieved January 21, 2017 .
  6. ↑ Isabelle Meiffert; G. Roger Denson: SPLENDID VOIDS. The Immersive Works of Kurt Hentschläger . Ed .: Isabelle Meiffert. DISTANZ Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95476-183-8 , p. 77 .
  7. ↑ Samia Majid: La d ́esorientation dans les installations de brouillard immersif. 2014, accessed January 21, 2017 .
  8. ^ Eleanor Larsen: Between Math and Mystery. 2014, accessed January 21, 2017 .
  9. ^ G. Roger Denson: And Some See God: Getting to the CORE in the 3D and Immersive Art of Kurt Hentschlaeger. 2013, accessed January 21, 2017 .
  10. ↑ Kurt Hentschläger ZEE. FILE, accessed March 3, 2017 .
  11. ^ Kurt Hentschläger - Works. Retrieved January 24, 2017 .
  12. ↑ Kenneth Baker: Art that causes pain. San Francisco Chronicle, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  13. ↑ Elizabeth Pearce: Interview with ZEE artist Kurt Hentschläger. July 5, 2013, accessed January 26, 2017 .
  14. ↑ Work in progress. Retrieved January 21, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Isabelle Meiffert; G. Roger Denson: Splendid Voids. The Immersive Works of Kurt Hentschläger (Preface) . Ed .: Isabelle Meiffert. Distance Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95476-183-8 .
  16. ^ G. Roger Denson: The Splendid Phenomenology of Hentschlägerian Voids . In: Isabelle Meiffert (Ed.): Splendid Voids The Immersive Works of Kurt Hentschläger . Distance Verlag GmbH, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-95476-183-8 , p. 21 .
personal data
SURNAME Hentschläger, Kurt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kitzler, Kurt (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian artist
DATE OF BIRTH 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Linz , Austria