2022/2023 | sound installation, 8 speakers, 8 bird nesting boxes, forest and animal sounds | Exhibition view Vogelklang-Soundcamp 2023, Black Forest | Foto: Irene Pérez Hernández.
Created in 2023 in the context of the artist residency @ Kunstverein Global Forest in St. Georgen for the “Vogelklang” (“bird sound”) sound camp in the Black Forest near St. Georgen/Furtwangen/Triberg.

What does home („Heimat“) mean to you? What melodies do you associate with this individual idea of home? These were the questions I asked in order to find people in St. Georgen and the surrounding area who want to participate in my project “Rhapsody (Black Forest Edition)”.
Rhapsody tries to rethink the concept of home as a polyphonic sound, that forms a home in which all people as well as animals and nature are equally involved. To find a universal, common language, I asked people to whistle their melodies. An identification of personal characteristics such as age, sex or origin was no longer possible on the basis of voice.

The recordings of the whistled melodies are now played from small loudspeakers in the forest, so that the whistling blends in the natural sound carpet of the Black Forest. People, birds and the wind in the trees now whistle together. Thus a sound image of home arises, a large whole, which nevertheless allows polyphony and diversity. After the sound camp is over, only the loudspeakers are removed, the bird nesting boxes are left to the animals in the forest.
The melodies were whistled by Metin Akcham, Gafur Camtay, Garbi Camtay, Nebahat Camtay, Gülüsan Çetin, Mehmet Çetin, Nikita Federov, Kerstin Grießhaber, Nailton Heringer, Wolodimir Kmoruzkevskyi, Engin Köker, Merve Köker, Daniel Leguy-Madžar, Danyi Martynchuk, Ömer Sahin, Tuba Sahin, Awa Samura, Rodion Stupar, Ekaterina Suzanskaya and Lingqi Zhang.

Thank you for facilitating and supervising the project to Daniel Leguy-Madžar, Irene Pérez Hernández, Norbert Schnell and Olsen Wolf and all the people involved.

2023 | beer tables | 300 cm x 220 cm | Exhibition view sitting in a tin can, galerie peripherie Tübingen 2023

The Shrine (Icon) questions the presence of the artwork in both analog and digital space, as well as its shift of meaning in society, from the icon in antiquity to the autonomy of modernity to commodity and capital investment in the present. Like a medieval Icon painting, the installation of usually down-to-earth beer tables floats under the ceiling in the corner of the exhibition space, a former brewhouse. The corner is elevated to the “Herrgottswinkel” (Lord God Angle), from which the radiant orange surface of the tables reflects their experiences of numerous festivities into the heart of the former brewery, now the exhibition space. At the same time, the work defies closer examination by its inaccessible height: the traces inscribed in the surface can only be guessed from a distance, the Icon becomes an icon – an intangible image of reality. Despite hypertopian1 accessibility in virtual space, details of the archive remain hidden; they can only be experienced in real and direct confrontation.

Curated by Kristof Georgen and Reinhard Brunner. The show was part of the programme Trüffelsuche of Künstlerbund Baden-Württemberg. Thank you also for helping with the set up to the team of technicians at Sudhaus Tübingen.

2022 | painted objects (water jug, book, harmonica, bench), photographs in 4 different Bammerthüsli | Exhibition view Bammerthüsli Kunst Projekte, Müllheim 2022, Bammerthüsli 5 on the road from Vögisheim to Feldberg from outside. An overview map with a list of all Hüsli can be found here.

Aus krummem Holz relates the narratives of romanticizing the simple life „in the good old days“ on the one hand and technological mania and belief in progress on the other. Both ideologies are extremes in the attempt to secure the survival of mankind. At first sight incompatible with each other, both however look for solutions how living together on earth (or another planet) can be possible on the basis of human basic needs such as dry shelter, safe sleeping place, uncontaminated food, social togetherness and cultural education. Aus krummem Holz avoids a valuation in favor of one or the other narrative line, which diverge further and further in social discourse. Only the title indicates that human (co-)existence can never be perfect, but is a constant trying and approaching.

 

The Bammerthüsli Art Projects 2022 were an exhibition organized by Kriz Olbricht in and around Müllheim. Starting points are Bammerthüsli, small solitary buildings in the vineyards, in which until the 20th century a Bannwart (Alemannic: Bammert) protected the ripening grapes against birds and mouth robbery. The majority have stood empty for years, forming their own network of coordinates in the agricultural and settled landscape. Text: Kriz Olbricht.

2017/2022 | 121 wheat straw bales, architecture | 250 cm x 540 cm x 450 cm | Exhibition view Destructura, MMIII KV Mönchengladbach 2022

Photos: Klaus Schmitt

2022 | eggshell dust, UV spray paint, Anröchter limestone, UV light | Exhibition view De Structura, Städtische Galerie im Park Viersen 2022
Cooperation with Jennifer López Ayala: „Toxic Earth – If i lose myself in you“ | 2022 | eggshell dust, UV pigment, UV light and Sophie Innmann „Selfie“ | 2017 | limestone, spray paint

Together, we explore how two individual works and positions relate when they are combined. Is the visibility of one’s own work and identity destroyed or does it gain more space?

Jennifer: „The special thing about this way of working is to open up much more intensively than usual to one’s spatial neighbour. We were assigned these two rooms with a door in the middle. That was the point where we became interested in sharing the space and making it bigger. We studied each other’s work, and together we selected these two works that we formed into a new one.
In this project, it’s a material-specific encounter and exploration of nature, the becoming and passing, the wisdom that endures. What is particularly exciting is that the main act
is a painterly one that stages itself without either of our intervention. The weighting of the spray cans with the limestone causes the pigment to spread over the room over hours and leaves behind a painterly gesture that neither destroys nor interferes with each other’s space.“

Sophie: „Our collaboration leads to the fact that you can’t separate the two works afterwards. It’s an irreversible act, a meltdown. Both individual positions are present and recognizable in their respective strength and yet merge into a holistic image. The result is an extract and at the same time a sum that is more than its parts.

2022 | posters designed for advertising pillars, intervention by passers-by and environment, translation of the compositions into audios | Exhibition view Ghost Notes, public space Stuttgart 2022

UCC provides a public archive, collecting human and non-human stains of life. The white paper is an invitation to participate, the lines are the setting and build the frame for further translation into sound, which will be done by the sound artists and musicians Andrea Conangla (UCC 3) and Felix Nagl (UCC 2).

Listen to the audio translation of the second billposting phase of UCC, which was on display at the corner of Danneckerstraße/Etzelstraße in Stuttgart between October 10 and 29, by sound artist Felix Nagl here. For the best sound experience please wear headphones as it is an binaural piece.

The four-minute track Felix composed from the stains on the posters is based on an improvisation, played on an analog synthesizer. The few marks the billboard contains, consist of the notation of three melodic lines, some of which became pulsating beats of the track by transposing them into extreme registers. One of the notated melodies is a quote from the 2nd movement of Beethoven`s Violin Concerto, which can be heard in fragments.
The supposed silence indicated by the blank spaces on the posters serve as a mirror of the space in which the column is located – a surface that reflects the sound of the environment. In this way, the soundscape of the public space, whose spectrum ranges from supposedly disturbing noises to the chirping of birds, also finds its place in the setting of UCC 2.

Foto above: Enzo Birra

2019/2022 | charcoal on paper | 50 cm x 70 cm | Exhibition view Ghost Notes, Kunstbezirk Stuttgart 2022

The drawings in the series Durchschlag are created according to musical wishes of people involved in the exhibition process. By playing along to the different songs on a snare drum prepared with carbon paper I transfer the audio from a temporary acoustic form into a permanent visual form of existence.

Titles of and links to the songs from left to right:
Josh Wink – higher state of consciousness
Art Blakey – Buhaina Chant
Marina Herlop – miu
METIN2 [MasterNoobs] MevelMuff Durchschlag Krit [U65]
Rauelsson feat. Simin Tander – L`Altare

Foto: Frank Kleinbach

The solo show Landscapes of Internet took place in Kunsthaus L6 Freiburg from June 10 until July 11, 2021 and was curated by Jennifer Krieger.
The show took you on a journey to the imaginary of a digital landscape, where you would find yourself confronted with technology and pure natural forces at the same time: the artworks were embedded in an atmosphere of sound, light, wind and smell.
The exhibition followed the ideas of sustainability not only concerning the topic of its content itself, e.g. how to live in times of progressing digitization and consumption of ressources of our planet, but also in the exhibition making: all material was borrowed, recycled or re-used.

About the theoretical reflections Jennifer and me published a text in frame-less magazine, which you can read here.

The following video takes you on a short trip through the exhibition. For the best audio experience I recommend wearing headphones.
The video recording was done with help of Michaela Klähn, the sound-of-Internet editing by Vincent Wikström.

 

The question of possibilities, potentials and limits of space are at the center of the exhibition LANDSCAPES OF INTERNET. Starting from observations on current hypertopization effects of digitality, Sophie Innmann explores virtual as well as analog spaces in terms of their commonalities, differences and compatibility from the specific perspective of human perception. The possibilities, but also the limits of a real space are critically questioned by the artist. The reflections on this are influenced by the experiences of the social pandemic turn, but reach back even further: already in pre-Covid times, Innmann reflected on the existing paradigm of real (museum) space in her artistic production by questioning the specific characteristics of the institutional exhibition space: Where does this system reach its limits? What is special about the digital space? The exhibition in L6 aims to provide access to this intangible world of the Internet. Haptic, audio-visual experiences are combined with technological loopholes that allow a temporary opening of virtual space in real space. A walk through the landscape designed by Innmann thus re-creates a reference to a tangible reality by making the digital visible in accessible objects.

Visitors gain access only by crossing the firewall in the entrance area; the exhibition space itself is visually bathed in a subdued, atmospheric light. The other world, that of digital space, is made clear by a pervasive soundscape (The Sound of Internet, sound-engineering: Vincent Wikström). The omnipresence of the digital becomes palpable and a holistic, sensory experience. Innmann leaves the verification of whether one is granted or denied access to this world not to the system, but to the visitors themselves. The red flag (verification – red flag by default) is both a warning and an indicator of a potential threat. The view into the mirror runs into the void, respectively into the infinite space, which, however, obviously only represents an optical illusion. The series camouflage shows stills taken from a cloud-based video conferencing service in which virtual meetings are made possible. The true, direct encounter, however, remains absent in this format – through rapid movements, the artist manages to elude the camera and to conceal her identity, at least temporarily. Blurred, graphic images of her person emerge – pixelated fragments that remind us how much or how little each person is transmitting as data at this moment.

The critical questioning of the transparent user, who often carelessly feeds information into the digital system and feeds the virtual cloud with considerable amounts of data, is taken up in several of Innmann’s works. A laser beam hits surfboards and explicitly points to the process of scanning data and personal information (A user’s life), an unstoppable process in which users further chain themselves with every click and seemingly merge with the digital world (Fusion).
But is it possible to counteract this appropriation, to escape the algorithm and find anonymity behind IP addresses (no such user found)? Or does one remain trapped and henceforth move in an in-between space that is able to cleverly evade any approach and in this sense only represents a projection of an apparent reality (hypertopia)?

The walk through the exhibition ends with a return to existential elements of nature and thus inevitably refers to the overcoming of the wall of fire at the beginning of the exhibition. Tree trunks lie charred and burned out on the floor, a backhoe shovel placed next to them (Netflix and Chill). Not only is the exploitation of natural resources through the daily use of the Internet and the energy consumption of data storage devices brought to mind here, but also one’s own personal burnout, which has led to a routinized automatism. Innmann does not present an obvious strategy for overcoming this state; rather, she captures this feeling as a lasting disturbance: an incisive noise that forces a pause, a moment of pause (cloud calling).

Text: Jennifer Krieger, 2021