DIGITAL MEDIA AND EXPERIMENT
Digital Media and Experiment
Together we are investigating interdisciplinary practices from extended reality to immersive installations. Our goal is to establish a language for the ever evolving fields of digital design and media art. Through a rigorous involvement of practice into theory we aim to partake in manifesting the establishment of these disciplines and play a visible role in the upcoming challenges that we face as creators as well as a society in general.
LICHEN, 2024
quadrophonic, motion sensory sound installation, video projection, 9.00 x 4.90 m, HD video loop 47:49 min, 5 square screens, 22 inch, 3D scan, HD video loops 1:40 min, 1 square screen, 33 inch, 3D scan, HD video loop 3:20 min, Print, macro photography, 1.06 x 4.90 m
In order to recognize the world, it is important to choose the intensity, perspective and form from which you want to view it first. Lichens create worlds in which an organism unfolds into an ecosystem and an ecosystem feeds an organism. For they switch back and forth between their self, the whole, and the collection of its parts. Where does an organism begin and where does it end? The material of this artistic research includes sound, photo and video material as well as digital scans of lichens to decipher their transformative behavior in relation to form and time. Are there other layers and processes that move on a scale that is invisible to our eyes; that take place on time scales that our senses cannot grasp? Based on the fascination of otherness, this work focuses on the art of perception in order to grasp the unexpected realities of these organisms. The result is an immersive, audiovisual and motion-sensory installation as an experience of nature, space and time.
On several field studies, into the Finnish forests, lichens were visited, explored, drawn, measured, determined and mapped several times over a longer period of time. During the intensive process of my approach to the organism of the lichen, as well as to its temporal and spatial localization, investigative macro photo and video material as well as high-resolution 3D photogrametry scans of various lichen species were created. The moving image material was slowed down and edited into a repetitive video that is projected in full format into the exhibition space. The result is an encompassing portal in real space through which the viewer finds themselves as part of the lichen ecosystem.
With the help of highly sensitive microphones, hydrophones and geophones as well as a portable recording device, I archived electromagnetic impulses of the lichen in the ground and the atmospheric noise of its surroundings in the field. The collected sounds were analyzed in the laboratory and sequenced into individual sequences. A single recording feeds aquadrophonic sound installation that mixes with the environmental sounds of the exhibition area. At its center, a real funnel lichen is positioned on an illuminated pedestal. As people move closer to the installation, the sound track changes into an undefined noise. The closer the distance to the lichen, the more intense the audible change. The movement-sensory change suggests an interaction between humans and lichens and raises the question of the possibilities of communication and relationships between human and non-human organisms.
Sonja Mense
mail@sonjamense.de
www.sonjamense.de
@sonjamense (Instagram)
Master‘s thesis at the
Bielefeld University
of Applied Sciences
Communication Design
supervising professors
Prof. Herwig Scherabon
Prof. Dr. phil. Kirsten Wagner
Photographer
Patrick Pollmeier
I Wish This Would Be Your Color
This artistic seminar aimed to explore transhumanist concepts through the use offace masks. The focus was on critically questioning the history and contemporaryculture of masks, as well as introducing new ideas. Masks are seen as a way totranscend one's own identity and engage with non-human life forms, as observed inanimist cultures. They provide agency to spirits, ancestors, or natural forces.However, in a contemporary context where gods are not widely acknowledged andnature is often viewed as "the other," the significance of this practice is worthexamining.
Identity and anonymity are fraught with political implications and power dynamics. Inthe digital age, the right to anonymity is constantly under threat, with biometric databeing stored and centralized without consent. Therefore, concealment can be seenas a political act. The seminar explored how concealment and the use of masks cancontribute to self-determination and protect gender identity and other forms of self-expression from external influence.
Studienrichtung: Digital Media & Experiment
Seminarleitung: Prof. Herwig Scherabon
3D Druck Assistenz: Serigne Buck & Hanno Hlacer
Photographie: Luis DietrichModels: Luca Ackermann, Serigne Buck, Marie Schmitt
Kursteilnehmer*innen:Timur Akhmetov, Charlie Baumgärtel, Serigne Buck, Rey Elert, Vladimir Gutschmidt,Leonie Hartmann, Hanno Hlacer, Kathrin Jazenjuk, Jessica Schliwa, CarloSeemann, Margarita Werwein, Sihyun Woo
