2023

At Xxijra Hii gallery in London

Image 1: Nicola Arthen, Estefanía B Flores, Maria Joranko, Kate Kuaimoku - Printed Emergence, Display structures and exhibition design
Image 2-3: Achinoam Alon - Earth Fax 1
Image 5+8: Hesse + Wakil - Sieben / Sieving
Image 7: Ivo Rick - byte by byte

2022

At Rosa Stern Space in Munich

Image 1: Invite, design and dedicated font by Julie Héneault and Noëm Held
Image 3: Kate Kuaimoku - ƒx = Cubit - A4
Image 5-6: Nicola Arthen - Preighter/Stowaway (Section Of A Day)
Image 7: Estefanía Batista Flores – Meccatterfly
Image 8: Maria Joranko - To Bring You My Love VII

2022

Jacquard wool knits based on composites of 3D-modelled and AI-text-to-image-generated pictures, laser-cut and polished steel, Stoll machine knitting needle, office chairs, steel brackets, various cables, (disassembled) server racks, 2-channel audio (11’05’’)

The installation is based on five Jacquard knits hanging from enlarged, laser-cut machine knitting needles and draped over office chairs borrowed from a nearby workshop and suspended in an angle with a metal floor bracket during the time of the show. The space is circumscribed by two diagonal rows of pillars made from disassembled server rack parts. 

Each Jacquard knit depicts a double image, one modelled in a 3D-software by myself and the other a reflection of the prior generated by feeding a description of the first image to an Artificial Intelligence. A voice whispers several prompts used in this translation process. It comes from the ventilation shafts of a server rack which acts as an (opaque) black box in the space.

A.I. produces images without a clear authorship. In contrast, their materialisation as knitted blankets brings these not only closer to the body, but also makes a conceptual connection between the Jacquard loom (and its punch card system from as early as the 19th century) as the preceding element to the binary code system of modern computers – the very host system of A.I. In this work, one knitted loop equals one pixel.

22 ready-hewn building blocks from red sandstone seem to have been delivered to the exhibition space in custom-fit cardboard boxes and are stored there for the duration of the exhibition without being unpacked. The building blocks were initially brought a hundred years ago to the landscape of a Dutch national park for the construction of a museum, which had never been built. With their initial displacement, they had accidentally introduced a species of moss to their new habitat. This moss is being cultivated during the exhibition inside a DIY-air-conditioning system recently developed by scientists to absorb aerosols in classrooms. The space is filled with voices from a phone conversation, the sound of trucks made by mouth and rhythms of stones being hit, all tracing the paths through which these diverse protagonists are connected.

Image 1:
The Architect, the Quarryman and the Philanthropist, 2021
6-colour neon sign (185 cm x 160 cm), transformers, wooden plate

Image 2-4:
_FOLDERS1—22, 2021
22 pieces between 30 to 165cm width Laser-cut cardboard, Maulbronn sandstone, packaging label, polyester strap, metal clips, pallets, pallet rack; wooden wedges to allow for the same angle as the stones usually lay in in the landscape

Image 3:
Untitled, 2021
CGI-animation on TV screen 3 min. 31 sec
2021

Image 2 and 10:
Hearing Trucks, Probably Dreaming Better, 2021
4-channel audio piece, 18 min. 36 sec. (in collaboration w/ Adrian Sölch)

Image 5:
Wall drawing of: Henry van de Velde, View: south facade (with chimney caps and stairs to the front), 12 June 1923 – Original at Collection Kröller-Müller Museum (KM 111.581), 2021
Crayon on wall

Image 7-9, 11:
Transmissions (after Max Planck Institute for Chemistry), 2021
Tubefoil, PE mesh, metal suspension system, ventilator, humidifiers, ceramic pipes, moss (Recurved Rock-Bristle), 1100 x 270 cm, cut gallery wall

Photos 1-6, 8-9, 11 by Charlott Markus, photo 7 and 10 by Nicola Arthen, courtesy of P////AKT Amsterdam

Presentation in the former changing rooms at Goldsmiths University's Deptford studios, London

A Beautiful, Grown-Up Horse In The Middle Of An Overheated Crowd
Modular system of 3D-printed ceramics, copper wire, concealed heating mechanism, found woven rug

I, I, The Neighbour Is Building A Twelve-Storey House
Casted epoxy resin, pigment, LED, transformer, wall panel

2019

PEGGY / DOBBY / Eagle vs. Drone / Drone vs. Eagle / LILY / LILY
Six sculptures, each: laser-cut wood, AC engine, microprocessor, relay, powder coated steel, stainless steel bolts, rubber; ca. 200 x 200 x 45 cm

In Fibre Of #1 (Crash Avoided)
Carbon fibre, epoxy resin, stainless steel bolts; 60 x 165 x 20 cm

In Fibre Of #2 (Frontal Crash)
Carbon fibre, epoxy resin, stainless steel bolts; 64 x 160 x 19 cm

VIDEO
Eagle & Hesitant Vehicles
Projection of HD video, 4 min 10 sec., looped
full video

Documentation: LNDW Studio

Five wooden replicas of Wi-Fi-routers are installed at a low height on the walls of a public location to suggest a potential broadband network – the minimum conditions for modern office work – rendering a specific place into a productive backdrop by minimum means. The work was conceived for a set of walls in Amstelpark – a physical remainder of the soft-ware company IBM’s pavilion at set place during the 1972 garden show in Amsterdam.

CNC-milled birchwood, weathered over three months, high-pressure cleaned stone walls;
Temporary and site-specific installation in Amstelpark Amsterdam during group exhibition Going Nomad

(Photos 1 + 2 in July: Coco Duivenvoorde, Photos 3 + 4 in September: Lukas Messner)

Group exhibition at puntWG initiated by Nicola Arthen with Alondra Castellanos Arreola, Paul Bernhard, Dan Walwin, Baha Görkem Yalim, Isabel Mager and François Girard-Meunier. See full documentation.

Audio piece (19' 38'') played in a hybrid car;
Working jacket from reflective fabric made by Alondra Castellanos Arreola

Photo documentation from solo exhibition Avenida Progreso at Plan B, Amsterdam in 2017.

Video documentation produced by PAOS, Guadalajara, Mexico in February 2018.

Duo exhibition with Ivo Rick at Artoxin, Munich

Documentation shows:

Avenida Progreso (y Union) - Neon tubes on styrofoam-casted concrete, transformer

Avenida Progreso (y Sindicalismo) - Neon tubes on styrofoam-casted concrete, transformer

DYN - Re-programmed electric blow heaters with each 3000 W from perforated and powder coated steel, control box

Cups - 3D-printed bioFila silk, cup holders from ABS plastic