Welcome to the virtual exhibition part of MANA!
While the Unity application takes a short time to load, here are a few things you can do with getting around:
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The application only works through Google Chrome
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The loading time is about 1-3 minutes, depending on how good the internet connection is
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The locomotion works with the arrow keys - up, down, right, left - or with the keys W, A, S, D
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Press the spacebar to jump
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There are a total of five exhibition halls, a foyer, a church hall and an elevator
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Move out of the church to see the entire structure
MANA is a hybrid exhibition project that takes place both virtually and physically. By linking two exhibition worlds, MANA blurs the boundaries between virtual and physical space, thereby questioning reality. Ten artists deal with the tension between dimension, fiction and transition and each of them shows a physical and a virtual work, that will expand, complement, answer and complete each other.
Janina Totzauer
INTO UR
4K video, 5 min, 2021
"INTO UR" follows the path that the previous video "OMEGA TO ALPHA" specified. If you want to look behind our supposed reality, you have to leave life through death (OMEGA). While you are walking in the time between death and (new) life, a junction opens up. It leads back to everything that was before: UR
Janina Totzauer (* 1988) lives and works in Munich and Praia do Tofo, Mozambique. Her artistic practice revolves around the question of how we give meaning to our existence in a time of constant threat to our living space. Totzauer's video installations are inspired by existentialist philosophies and human rituals. By building a bridge between the past and a post-anthropocene future, Totzauer tries to question the role of humans on this planet. In contrast to the scientific approach, her videos are always fed by the most diverse anecdotal traditions that have always tried to explain the essence and meaning of human beings.
Diogo da Cruz
Eccentrica (wonder where to land)
Steel, polyethylene pipe, 2021
download here the full virtual experience
With an installation that connects and penetrates the exhibition space, Diogo da Cruz presents a series of metal objects that are the protagonists of a science fiction story about an underwater civilization. "Eccentrica (wonder where to land)" pays homage to unicellular microalgae found in most aquatic environments. They are a significant part of our planet's biomass and produce most of the oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. In virtual space, these beings are represented as a green, liquid cloud that moves, expands and speaks.
Diogo da Cruz (* 1992) lives and works in Munich and Lisbon. His artistic practice is based on the use of technology to replicate or imitate, re-articulate and re-imagine the unchallenged structures of Western society. He works on long-term projects, some of which are driven by fictional scenarios that are often based on scientific knowledge and relate to past, present and future socio-political circumstances. With an interest in the degree of uncertainty associated with the construction of human knowledge, the projects interweave scientific research, historical elements, memory and fiction to reflect on "slowness" as a form of resistance.
Lilian Robl
Breath for two voices, video HD, 3:10 min, 2021
Breathing, Video HD, 1: 1.85, 3 min 10 sec, 2021
As part of the MANA exhibition, Robl is showing two new video works based on her preoccupation with the concept of breathing. Both works assume an entanglement of breathing and thinking. The video "Breath for two voices" (Video HD, 3 min 40 sec, 2021) is shown in the virtual room: the YouTube video AN HOUR TO BREATHE (dark mode) served as the starting material, which Robl then filled with words and so on interpreted as a fleeting diagram of the breath. The work can be seen as a kind of prior knowledge - or: fore-thinking - for the video that is shown in the physical exhibition space of the VerpackereiGö: The artist posed for "Breathing" (Video HD, 1: 1.85, 3 min 10 sec, 2021) the question of how a video could be made that does what it speaks of: namely, breathing itself.
Lilian Robl (* 1990) works as a visual artist in the border area between artistic research, literature and video art. A large part of her artistic work has its starting point in a certain term.
Tatjana Vall
Hashcash
Glass body, metal, computer, lighting, painted lady, sound, 1g silver plate, script 200 x 70 x 150 cm, 2021
In her work "Hashcash", various transformation processes take place under a glass basin in an artificially created biosphere. A mining computer is part of this process; it mines cryptocurrency units, monetary products in the broadest sense, for the duration of the exhibition period. While the mining process runs, butterfly pupae transform into full grown butterflies in the warmth of the computer fan. The butterflies, some of which have already hatched, are now moving in the rooms of the VerpackereiGö, but have mainly moved into the virtual exhibition, where they live in the virtual building as depictations of themselves. The monetary equivalent freshly mined by the mining computer is shown in the virtual part of the exhibition as an investment in the form of silver bars – the wings of the butterflies each consist of 1g silver plates.
Revolving around the relativity naturally accompanied by investing practices, Vall exploits the predictability of absolute transformation processes and puts artificial and organic whims on the same level - the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly acts as organic evidence of the “proof of work”.
Tatjana Vall (* 1994) lives and works in Munich. Her work deals with artificial ecosystems and paradoxical levels of reality in which she positions human and non-human actors. Vall questions the limits of active-passive relationships at the interface between media and installation practices.
Sebastian Quast
Spinning, 360 degree video, 2021
Gizmos, 3D printing (PLA / PET), steel, 2021
In the virtual part of the exhibition the topic is physical orientation. The artist turns around his own axis in the 360-degree video "Spinning", thereby tricking his ability to orient himself. In addition, the video rotates around itself and thus forms a new frame of reference. The sphere on which the video is projected seems too big for the room and is squeezed in. This shows a physical limitation that actually does not exist in virtual space.
The work "Gizmos" in the physical part of the exhibition consists of three 3D-printed coordinate systems, as they are known as an orientation aid in virtual space. These are translated into the physical world in the most direct way.
Just as there is no above or below in the virtual, each gizmos is oriented differently and its XYZ axes each create their own space. As a virtual artifact in the physical world, they also refer to the increasing merging of physical and virtual.
Sebastian Quast (* 1997) deals in his works with the different orientation and spatial perception of the analog and virtual world.
Judith Neunhäuserer
Feststeht (be certain, firm, definite, known)
Sound installation, plaster, bass shaker, cable, fabric, 10 min, 2021
The components of the work "Feststeht" are a further development of the performance "Während die Welt dreht", which was shown at the beginning of the year in the former Carthusian monastery in Karthaus (Schnalstal, IT). Federico Delfrati created eight rhythms in a costume designed by Annabell Lachner while scanning and measuring the historical cloister - by tapping with a microphone - which complement each other.
The Order of the Carthusians is an order of silence and follows a very distinct daily routine that differs from the natural environment: the brothers and sisters start their day at 11.30 p.m. and structure it around the eight prayer times Nocturn, Matutin, Prim, Terz, Sext, Non, Vespers, Compline. The reason and the goal of this perpetual prayer is the recognition of the fixed point in the course of the world.
In the virtual sacred space HOLY PLAZA, the soundtracks created in an actual sacred architecture are placed. They are digitally provided with a hall corresponding to the location. In the physical exhibition space of the VerpackereiGö footprints refer to the path covered and, together with the costume hanging over the stretched microphone cable, to the absent body of the performance - the rhythm's origin.Perceptible to the visitors is the vibration of the bass shakers cast in plaster, which play the sound tracks through the cavities in the footprints.
Judith Neunhäuserer (* 1990) currently lives and works in Munich and Milan. In her artistic practice she deals with aesthetic and epistemic similarities between science and religion in formulating models of and for the world.
Angela Stiegler
Taubentheater (en.Pigeon theater)
Video installation, HD, color, copper, CDs, decoration, curved monitor, 20 min, 2021
At the moment I'm most inspired by the pigeons that live next to my Bathroom window. Since the winter lockdown, I've generally had the feeling that I have to adapt to my surroundings more on a daily basis than before, almost like someone with a different job or at an older age. I'm not sure how many hours the birds sleep, but I get close to them and sing them to sleep while I brush my teeth. The fact that I probably drove the animals away through these advances is reflected in the sculpture, which is offered as a stand for the pigeons, but scare them in the materials.
The video "Taubentheater" reflects Stiegler's experience of quarantine and the change in her relationship to her own body and those of the pigeons who live by her bathroom window. The outsider role of pigeons, their way of life as cosmopolitans and ambassadors began to get Angela Stiegler interested. Singing in the shower was used to practice new songs like "Cucurrucucu Paloma" in a remix with "Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär".
The virtual architecture begins to deteriorate at one point and thus opens up to the outside world. This takes place parallel to real architectures, and intensifies in global metropolises, which are abandoned to decay as an investment strategy and are inhabited by rats, pigeons and mice until they collapse or are released for demolition.
Angela Stiegler (* 1987) lives and works in Berlin and Munich. Stiegler's way of working has an inherently collaborative quality and is intermedial: it interconnects elements from performance, video, installation, sound, text, 3D animation and research techniques in order to negotiate body politics. A special focus in her practice lies on artistic research and friendship as an economy.
Paul Valentin
Lothar,
Full HD, stereo, 12 min, 2021
On December 26, 1999, hurricane Lothar destroyed many forests in Northern and Central Europe. Some of the forests were artificially reforested by humans, others were left to nature. At one of these places, a path was created from the broken wood of the trees, which leads through the storm thrown area. The non-intervention of humans should be made visible from the path. The paradox of passive intervention can be found on different levels in the work "Lothar".
There are virtual overlays over the film recordings. They show a strange technical installation that runs along the way. This seems like an attempt to hermetically separate the remains of a human presence from nature after the storm mixed them with the remains of the forest. The complex becomes a symbol for the flowing relationship between the natural and the artificial and the difficulty of separating these terms from one another. Just as if there was an access to nature that only the artificial can provide.
Paul Valentin (* 1990) deals in his work with philosophical dilemmas and traditional questions of metaphysics. In addition to video, his work also includes music, graphics and sculpture. His work has been exhibited at the European Media Art Festival, the Celeste Prize and Sluice Biennale in London and the Biennale at Haus der Kunst and the Exchange Council in New York. In 2019 he received the Karl & Faber Prize for his animated film "Nothing".
Merlin Stadler
A finite view of infinity
Video, 7 min, 2021
"A finite view of infinity" is an animated short film which was inspired by the engravings in Thomas Wright's book "An Original Theory or New Hypothesis of the Universe" from the 18th century.
Wright imagined the universe as an assemblage of gigantic spheres that unite all celestial bodies.
This idea is spun on in "A finite view of infinity".
Universes in spherical form collide in a never-ending dance of perpetual creation. That accumulation of universes is in turn situated in a constantly changing abstract body which continuously warps and oscillates. The film ends with reality itself disappearing, only to give way to a new body. Another cycle begins.
Merlin Stadler (* 1990) lives and works in Munich. In his work he deals primarily with transdisciplinary issues and socially relevant topics such as climate change, social upheavals and the position of humans in socio-ecological contexts.
Justin Urbach
Sticky Mouth
3-channel video installation, 4K, stereo, 15 min, printed carpet, bronze cube, 2021
The video installation "Sticky Mouth" deals with the question of the extent to which humans change in an age of increasing virtual realities and become part of the enormous transformation process in which the boundaries of realities are increasingly blurred and no longer form entities.
The 3-channel video shows a man lying in a tub as he - as in an absurd ritual - melts wax cubes. Analogous to the materials, which go through a continuous transformation process (from the wax form to the bronze casting), the man can be seen at the same time as an avatar whose trigger points can be controlled virtually. This results in a variety of analogies between people and material, which in their various forms and states of aggregation reflect each other and continually question our real and virtual certainties.
Justin Urbach (* 1995) lives and works as a multimedia artist in Munich. In his artistic practice, he uses time-based media to research the integration between human beings and virtual reality, with a focus on questions of mediality, materiality, supposed masculinity and transformative processes. The medium shines through and with it the basic technological conditions of Urbach's works, which are addressed questioningly to the viewer and move in the areas of media art, film, photography and sound installation.
The physical part of the month-long exhibition will be presented in the basement of the VerpackereiGö in Görisried. The ten Munich artists will be showing large-scale video projections, sound installations and expansive objects. The virtual component takes place in the futuristic church HOLY PLAZA, a construction project by the architects Studio Paradiso, which was developed in collaboration with Bruno Wank. With the sole aim of bringing 'church' and 'living' together, Andreas Mischke, Eva Miklavcic and Eugen Happacher developed the futuristic church HOLY PLAZA. The 3D model tries to combine apartments, a church tower and the Allgäu pointed house roof in the floor plan of the church. Based on this model, a construction board was set up in front of the packaging shop, which advertises the fictitious construction project and addresses the surface sealing of the Allgäu.
Studio Paradiso developed the architectural interior design of the church for MANA. A spiral staircase connects the individual houses inside and leads to the bird cage on the church roof. The possibility of a virtual tour gives the 3D model an inner life, while at the same time a space is opened up for dealing with questions about reality and fiction.