Ruth Schnell – WORKBOOK by De Gruyter Arts

Peter Weibel / Katharina Gsöllpointner (Eds.)

The cover design, titled 100123-2800 (2023), is an AI interpretation derived from the wall pieces Concertina (barbed wire models) and Enchantment of the Seas (ship/migration routes in the Mediterranean). The AI Stable Diffusion was trained offline on a local computer. The title refers to the date of generation and the number of selected iterations.

Ruth Schnell—WORKBOOK Mirrors of the Unseen

Edition Angewandte—Book Series of the University of Applied Arts Vienna Edited by Gerald Bast

RUTH SCHNELL—WORKBOOK MIRRORS OF THE UNSEEN

Peter Weibel / Katharina Gsöllpointner (Eds.)

CONTENTS

Foreword 8

Peter Weibel Introduction

Katharina Gsöllpointner Conversation

Shaping Realities: A Walk-through of 40 Years of Media Art Production. Katharina Gsöllpointner in conversation with Ruth Schnell Works

The Moving Recipient. Modes of Viewing and Representation Systems

127

The Proprioceptive Body. Self-Identification and Believability

179

Uncertain Spaces. Hybrid Constructions between Space-Time Dynamics and Semiotic Spaces

257

Territories. Between Spaces of Power and Action Essays & Interview

338

Ruth Schnell—Theater as World and (Art)World as Theater. Claudia Giannetti

346

Ruth Schnell—Lichtbilder: Or Introducing a Voluptuous Panic into the World. Chris Salter

350

“There is never one truth.” An interview with Ruth Schnell by Jill Scott Annex

356

Biographies

358

Featured Works 1983–2022

360

Photo Credits

361

Acknowledgments

FOREWORD

Foreword Peter Weibel

Forty years of prodigious artistic production have staked out uncharted territories in media art to render the unknown visible: Ruth Schnell’s work as a media artist is distinguished by her systematic investigation of historical concepts of reality, which have been called into question through technologically augmented perception. Classical art and corresponding notions of reality were firmly anchored in the realm of natural perception. With the advances in science and technology, a horizon beyond natural perception began to unfold. Media art is part of this radical transformation. The work of Ruth Schnell has made a significant contribution to understanding this process. Her media art transcends the moving image by engaging the participation of viewers in motion, expanding object-based or sculptural media art into immersive environments. Her artistic practice resides in the layers of variable visibility. In this zone of vision, there are no depictions of reality; rather, the virtual images are gateways to reality. References to global, socio-political issues through the lens of the latest technological developments are intrinsic to her artistic approach. This WORKBOOK is not only a diligent documentary survey of Ruth Schnell’s artistic oeuvre, it is also an instruction manual for self-empowerment in our contemporary technicized civilization and a blueprint for those who aspire to further enhance their competence in the field of media.

Peter Weibel Karlsruhe, January 2023

INTRODUCTION

Introduction Katharina Gsöllpointner

Seen from today’s perspective, media artist Ruth Schnell counts among the second generation of digital artists who entered the international art scene at the end of the 1970s and, with the advent of the personal computer, turned the art world upside down. As one of the first art students in Austria who ventured to work with the legendary Commodore 64—initially in collaborative projects with Gudrun Bielz—she used this artificial contraption, and thereafter the latest digital machines, to upend conventional artistic and aesthetic standards and map out new trajectories. Early on, Ruth Schnell recognized the enormous potential in working with computers, which she saw as an invitation and challenge to test the technical and aesthetic scope of these technologies to the limits of the imagination. To this day, Schnell not only exhausts the capacities of these devices; she willfully “abuses” and deconstructs them in research-driven experimentation and technical “improvisations,” which always bring the blind spots of technologies to light, making them visible and comprehensible. Media art, and the so-called digital arts in particular, did not fully emerge as a sovereign branch of the art system until the 1980s, even though the aura of art had already undergone—latest with Walter Benjamin—a radical change in the wake of the technical innovations of photography and film. The true paradigm shift ensued after roughly two decades of artists around the world wielding analog audiovisual, electronic media and apparatuses in the form of TV and video, at the time when Ruth Schnell, after studies at the Academy of Art and Industrial Design in Linz, enrolled at the Academy of Applied Arts Vienna.1 The

1 Today, the University of Arts Linz and the University of Applied Arts Vienna respectively.

invention of the personal computer, a digital machine for home use, heralded a technological and social revolution. An entire generation of international digital artists, with Schnell as one of its pioneers, played a major role in the advancement and simultaneous critical negotiation of digital technologies. From the very outset, Peter Weibel was a committed mentor and supporter of Ruth Schnell’s artistic development. Starting as his student, they worked together intensively on the realization of a variety of media art research projects. In 1990, she was selected (together with Bielz) for the Aperto of the Venice Biennale, and in 1995, Weibel, as commissioner of the Austrian Pavilion, invited her alongside other media artists to realize an interactive media art project there.

Initially as his assistant in the Master Class for Visual Media Design (later the Department of Digital Arts) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, Ruth Schnell also headed the department twice on an interim basis, until 2 Peter Weibel co-conceived this WORKBOOK by Ruth Schnell and wrote its foreword as editor before he suddenly and unexpectedly passed away in March 2023.

finally taking it over as a professor in 2010. Since then, she has continuously expanded the department with an excellent team of experts and transformed it into one of the most prestigious European centers of digital art studies.2 At the core of Ruth Schnell’s works—or, in other words, media inquiries into the technologies she employs—has always been the relationship between human perceptions of reality and spatial concepts, which she frames in a kinestheticproprioceptive worldview and whose contingencies are always open to debate. This interrogation of physically inscribed codes of perception unfolds on a formal as well as “narrative” level through irritating, almost perfidious “traps” that the artist sets for the viewers, to the very extent that they sometimes cannot help but no longer trust their own perception. At times, even basic social conventions seem to become obsolete. This unique artistic strategy of undermining familiar spatial constructs and vantage points, perceptual patterns and sensory categories, and exposing the digital dispositives in her works is what makes Schnell’s repertoire so attractive, mysterious, ostensibly simple, and yet highly complex at the same time.

3 In this WORKBOOK, many works are furnished with a QR code providing a digital link to the artist’s video archive.

The WORKBOOK before you covers almost the entire artistic oeuvre of Ruth Schnell from 1983 to date.3 Within its multifaceted aesthetic-formal vocabulary, four underlying topoi can be identified, which seem to recur albeit in various aesthetic manifestations. These topoi, however, surface in all of her works, in varying degrees of intensity, and sometimes several might overlap in one and the same piece: The Moving Recipient. Modes of Viewing and Representation Systems: paradigms of visual perception, representational regimes, modes of viewing. The Proprioceptive Body. Self-Identification and Believability: modes of representation and identification, the tacit body, the body as an interface. Uncertain Spaces. Hybrid Constructions between Space-Time Dynamics and Semiotic Spaces: conceptions of space, dynamization, destabilization. Territories. Between Spaces of Power and Action: borders and territories as sociopolitical constructs, space as a contested field, interfaces of spatial concepts.

Introduction Katharina Gsöllpointner

On all four levels, the artist’s extensive body of works persistently asserts the intrinsic technologies both as aesthetic design tools and media of introspection, while weaving media-reflexive and media-critical perspectives into the stories being told. Inevitably, the viewers become essential co-authors of the artworks, yet are thrown back at themselves in this role—a genuine artistic strategy that can only truly be experienced through active interaction and engagement with the works.

Katharina Gsöllpointner Vienna, May 2023

SHAPING REALITIES: A WALK-THROUGH OF 40 YEARS OF MEDIA ART PRODUCTION. KATHARINA GSÖLLPOINTNER IN CONVERSATION WITH RUTH SCHNELL

Conversation Katharina Gsöllpointner and Ruth Schnell

Katharina Gsöllpointner

Dear Ruth, I’d suggest that this conversation follows a

media-historical track, looking at your work along a temporal axis, starting in the 1980s. That was about the time you started studying and working as an artist. It coincided with a radical surge and transformation in the field of electronic technologies worldwide, namely the invention of the personal computer. During your studies at the Art Academy in Linz and then later at the Angewandte with Peter Weibel, you were one of the first art students in Austria to work with a computer. Can you tell me a bit more about that time? Ruth Schnell

In Linz, I was in Laurids Ortner’s basic design course. Later, I switched

from painting—because it was too conservative for me—to art education, but it wasn’t my cup of tea, either. So I came to Vienna to Peter Weibel, who was heading the art education class at the Angewandte at the time. I was already working with video in Linz, with a black-and-white video camera that still had narrow tapes, 1/8 inch tapes. Here in Vienna, I continued with it in the so-called “Oberhuberkammerl.” It was essentially a video editing suite for U-matic low band in the graphics class, headed by Oswald Oberhuber. And by “editing suite,” I mean two video recorders or recording devices with an editing computer and a video camera in between. Gudrun Bielz, who I worked together with intensively at the time, studied with Oberhuber. The editing suite was often free, so we could do whatever we want and made our first videos there. And then, I think it was at the end of 1983, Peter Weibel acquired two C64s for the art education class at Oskar-Kokoschka-Platz... KG

You mean Commodore 64s…

Right. And he asked us if we wanted to work on them, and from then on a

Commodore was reserved for us. Right off, I went and bought a small ten by ten centimeters graphics tablet with a pen, and also a digitizer that could digitize one image per second. This Commodore 64 had six additional colors besides black and white—that was our palette. The C64 was programmed with Basic, meaning I sat there with the manual on my lap and tried my hand at sprites, little animated figures just eight pixels high. For example, I built a Penrose staircase with a little man running up it endlessly, in the spirit of Escher. Such things were possible, but with a lot of trial and error. For example, I didn’t know where the zero point was, and then there was the chore of getting the video back out of the computer.

One disadvantage of the C64 was that the picture had a border about five centimeters wide and thus was relatively small in itself. To get rid of this edge, we started filming the monitor and processing this video material afterwards. We really did a lot of experimenting around. KG

And the first work you did together with the C64...

Our first work together on the computer? That was Plüschlove.

A very successful video about love, the idea of love, the male and the female imaginations. Later, we expanded the idea into a video installation, the Traumliege. It consisted of a metal bed with a built-in monitor that displayed distorted porn images resulting from video experiments. And Plüschlove, 1984

beside it was an obligatory bouquet of flowers with thirty real red roses. KG

What was it that was so fascinating about computers? Back then,

you were one of the first to work with the Commodore, and since then you’ve never really been able to get away from computers... RS

What always fascinated me about making videos was the experiments.

We sent a video twenty times through the recorder, from copy to copy to copy to copy. Back then, in analog video, it resulted in an insane loss of quality. And we sort of brought that quality loss back to video. Sometimes, mistakes Traumliege, 1987

happened while connecting things together—we always connected everything together ourselves—all of a sudden, you had a bar across the screen, which constantly ran through the picture. Unfortunately, these errors were difficult to reproduce, so we always recorded such errors on the spot. Coaxing something different out of the apparatus, so to say, was quite intriguing for me. Perfectly “normal” videos—we made those too, but we upstaged their content. These experiments were extremely interesting in terms of aesthetic representation. The computer enabled even more manipulation and experimentation, which suited my aesthetic ideas very well. Needless to say, I never really knew how to program, but I did learn a bit of programming in order to do what we wanted to do. The rest we pulled off with low-level digitizing and digital paintovers or drawings, by editing, photographing and filming the screen. At that time, there was still a BTX system, the MUPID. It was more or less a failed project by the Austrian postal service, similar to the Minitel in France, but in fact something like teletext between people or perhaps a precursor

Conversation Katharina Gsöllpointner and Ruth Schnell

of the internet. We had a huge tablet, wickedly expensive, that the post office made available for us to experiment with. But I still had to film everything from the monitor—some of the results can be seen, for example, in the MU-Rätsel project. KG

Early digital media art was indeed very much linked to companies and

enterprises, such as the Post and Telekom, which provided technology and equipment. This continued into the late 1990s—for instance, with the famous Onyx by Silicon Graphics. But it opened up the debate about the extent to which artists are involved in the development of these technologies, perhaps even for the pure profit of companies. They were very interested in this collaboration and frequently supported interactive media art through technology sponsorship. RS

For me, it was always important to use the technology so that it is not just

on the sidelines or in the background but always for the intent of experimentation. This “misuse” entails, on the one hand, learning the technology, but then again, always trying to bring about something that is not actually possible. KG

With this approach, you invoke the tradition of media artists like Nam

June Paik or the Vasulkas, artists who employed and experimented with this “misuse” of technologies in the visual realm, but also in the domain of sound and in doing so, inevitably, advanced the aesthetics of these technologies too. RS

Yes, however, there is a distinction between Nam June Paik and the Vasulkas.

Woody Vasulka was truly a highly talented technician. We were always amazed at what he accomplished. There are things I still don’t know exactly how he did. Steina is the artist. And Nam June Paik, once he said that what he does is disco for intellectuals. In other words, he didn’t care what he was using. He just used everything, mixed it up, and then looked at what the broadcast machines had to offer. KG

Another aspect that always fascinates me in your work is the issue

of media reflexivity, which really means nothing other than making the socalled blind spots of the media visible. By “misusing” them, you see things you normally don’t see. I wonder whether it was always your conscious decision to make these blind spots of the media more apparent. Or was it something that came about automatically through experimenting? RS

I have always been deeply interested in perception. Perception and reality.

In other words, in the, let’s say, very individual construction of reality in this world

and in the media construction of the world in general. For example: Everyone is familiar with a drum revolver; we see it in front of us and hear the trigger click. But in fact, we only know it from Western movies. Well, at least I have never seen a drum revolver in my life, but I know exactly how it works. That means the drum revolver is a quasi-mediatized revolver that has become real for my inner eye. This type of mediatization has always intrigued me, especially in combination with the perception of the world, and thus potential distortions of reality constructions. And precisely through such distortions do I become aware what this “other” could be. Take The Space Between 1 and 2 for example: It was the last work I did together with Gudrun Bielz. We inserted a virtual construction site shaft in the subway with airplanes flying by below. It’s a The Space Between 1 and 2, 1991

twist that actually inverts our expectations, but without frustrating them. KG

You also addressed perceptual processes and reality constructions

marvelously in your work Der andere Beobachter from 1991/1992. The physical process of seeing or perceiving itself becomes the subject by positioning the projection of a human eye at the center of the installation. It challenges the viewer to find the “right” standpoint, the “right” perspective, in order to perceive a “true” or “correct” image of this eye. And as it turns out, there is no ideal standpoint at all. RS

There are multiple levels in this work. One is an eye projected on five

surfaces, but at different depths into the space. While you cannot find the ideal viewing standpoint, you can pass through the eye, namely between these projection panels, and become part of the work yourself. You are part of the installation for other viewers too, because your shadow interferes in the projection. The next level is that a space is reflected in the iris, but it is not the Der andere Beobachter, 1991/1992

space in which the eye is located, it is yet another space, namely a cinematic space with scenes from Siodmak and Hitchcock films. I had already used them in 1989 in another work, Tür für Huxley. In this case, however, I tried to position the scenes on the iris so that it looks like the iris is mirroring this other room. KG

So again a mediatized space.

Again a mediatized space where the camera is looking back, as it were.

There was yet another level: We were able to manually focus the projector’s optics—which were still attached lenses at the time—using rubber bands and a motor. This allowed us to adjust the depth of field from the back to the front and vice versa—again, another similarity to the cinematic space.

Conversation Katharina Gsöllpointner and Ruth Schnell

A tech-hack of sorts…

Exactly. With the simplest means. You wouldn’t be able to do that anymore

with modern projectors, but today you could surely replicate the effect digitally. KG

Through the various elements of movement in this installation, you also clearly

illustrate that the process of seeing, or visual perception, is not merely imagebased, rather it is firmly linked to the movement of the viewer’s body. I think, in this act of walking around in the installation, the subject of proprioceptive perception comes into play quite strongly, in other words, the whole-body perception that connects different sensory regions to one another. That is, when we see, we see with the whole body, to paraphrase Humberto Maturana’s famous premise... RS

One of my favorite lines: “We see with our legs.” So we don’t just see with our

eyes. Having said that, I did indeed take up the theme of viewing choreographies and the “eye perspective,” so to speak. For example, the work In between, where I used a computer-controlled spotlight in an old church. Everything is completely dark; all you see is a beam of light. The light cone is always the same size, no matter where it hits the architecture. At the same time, there is a special filter that makes the cone look like a flashlight. It seems as if someone is going down the stairs and shining a flashlight

In between, 1999

around, inspecting this space. And as everything is dark there, it forces the viewer into this—my—viewing choreography. Incidentally, he or she can stand still in one place, one of the rare occasions in my works. In this case, the viewers are at the parapet that separates the actual room and suddenly have to follow a gaze that is not his or her own. And this image, arising from what the spotlight picks out, and the temporality of this succession of images, which is actually a spatial sequence of this light, is forced upon the viewer. KG

So it’s similar to a cinematic dispositif, where you’re in a dark room, or like

Plato’s Cave, where people are forced to look at the shadows cast by the light of the fire. They have to watch what is being shown to them (although in Plato’s case, it is their own shadows that they see), and even their eyes have to move as directed. RS

Exactly, because they inspect the room too. I was able to do this quite well

using a light projector controlled via computer. At the time, this was a completely new technology from the concert industry.

MODES OF VIEWING AND REPRESENTATION SYSTEMS

“If you, for instance, consider my dear friend Humberto Maturana, he came up with this wonderful line: ‘We see with our legs.’ ‘Sure, how’s that, Chicho?’ I ask, ‘Why with the legs?’ ‘Well, just walk, everything changes.’” —Heinz von Foerster 1

1 Heinz von Foerster at the symposium Interface II—WeltbilderBildwelten. Computergestützte Visionen, Hamburg, 1993.

What we see and how we see it are governed by our modes of viewing. We see a world already embedded in our representation systems; the perception of reality is simultaneously its construction. Underlying this construction are specific modes of viewing and social conventions. Mediatization is an intrinsic component in this formation of reality. In her works, Ruth Schnell investigates perception in its relation to the movement of the viewer and visual representation and formulates ways of seeing by juxtaposing or contrasting different conceptions of space. Her media settings involve the participants, who come to fathom the constructed nature of cognitive patterns—inscribed codes are subverted and called into question. Schnell stages kinetic image systems: their interface is the moving body of the viewer. The interplay between recipient, captured movement, and spatial environment elicits a narrative that unfolds in the convergence of real and simulated domains of image and space. Likewise, the moment of reception becomes a subject of artistic investigation: perspective representation, which assigns the viewer a single valid point of view, is undermined in Ruth Schnell’s works.

Installation concepts are tailored to the moving recipient; ideal viewing positions are averted or arise only as the viewer maneuvers through the image space. The codes of visual perception, which condition our interpretation of what we see, are reconstructed and deconstructed. Perception and interpretation take place in motion. Works with light sticks exemplify this in a special way: here the retina of the recipient becomes the interface, delays in the perceptual apparatus trigger the emergence of the image, reception becomes an individual sensory experience. The representational counterpart—a stick with image information encoded in light impulses—only discloses its message to the viewer upon an unintentional gaze while moving past it. Hence, contrary to conventional modes of viewing images, the work is activated by a perception in passing. (see also pages 52–53)

The Moving Recipient

TÜR

1988

Upon entering the room, the visitor sees a projected door and a real door, both are closed and illuminated. A catwalk leads directly toward a freestanding largeformat projection surrounded by a portal. The taper of the catwalk reinforces the impression of a central perspective arrangement. When the viewer steps on the catwalk and walks toward the projected door, a sensor triggers the image events: the projected door opens. The virtual extension of the catwalk turns out to be a “direct transmission” of where the viewer has just come from, live street events taking place in front of the building, filmed from above. The catwalk catapults

Interactive computer/ video installation Setup with real door (closed), portal, catwalk, video projection, sensor-controlled computer animation, analog video, video player, live camera, Amiga 1000 computer, video digitizer / switcher / Chroma key, image mixer, sensor, spotlight, loudspeakers

the viewer right into the projected event. Beside the door on the large-screen projection, a framed view through an open window depicts a past situation: a montage of time-lapse video footage taken at night from the same camera angle. Tür (Door) stages a simultaneous presentation, the relativity of the present and the past, the real and the projected. Illusionistic architecture, a traditional element in theater and art since the Renaissance, Baroque, and Mannerism, is advanced with contemporary media technology. Through the moving image, the media serve as doubling machines, augmenting the effects of both realism and trompe-l’œil. The computer animation was created with an Amiga 1000 graphics program.

Exhibitions 1988

University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna, AT (diploma thesis)

 Installation views and interaction process, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna, 1988

The Moving Recipient

TÜR FÜR HUXLEY

1989

For the Ars Electronica festival, Ruth Schnell elaborated the interactive installation Tür für Huxley (Door for Huxley). The three doors in the environment represent entrances to disparate reality constructs, which the viewer can interact with. He or she has the choice to contemplate a conserved image reality, access illusory spaces, or play the role of a passive voyeur. The projected door to the left is only open a crack, offering a glimpse into spatial representations and viewing dispositifs used in suspense films: artificially distorted staircase and door sequences from renowned films by Alfred Hitchcock

Interactive computer/ video installation Setup with real door, real staircase, video projection, sensor-controlled computer animation, analog video, video player, 2 live cameras, Amiga 1000 computer, video digitizer / switcher / Chroma key, image mixer, sensor, blackand-white monitor, artwork reproduction, 2 profile spotlights, computer-controlled sound, microphone, sound mixer

and Robert Siodmak. When the viewer traverses the area of the sensors, the middle door—also projected—opens and presents a back view of the visitor from the perspective of an imaginary “other.” When the viewer tries to approach his or her own image, it vanishes into the illusory space. In front of the third, real door lies a reproduction of a painting by surrealist artist Dorothea Tanning (Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, 1943). A black-and-white camera transfers its image to a surveillance monitor behind the illuminated keyhole. While the monitor behind the real door suggests control over space and events “there,” the observer, now in the position of the keyhole voyeur, is surprised by the “here.” In their simultaneity, the multiple, seemingly nestled, spatial conceptions with displaced space-time axes have an unsettling effect. Various media dispositifs are partially ascribed new functions: they are clearly based on trompe-l’œil techniques; however, the texture and color of painting are replaced by the animated electronic image and the static representation of architecture by a moving projection that

 Technical matrix of the interaction process

corresponds with the real architecture of the space. The gaze doubles with the camera eye as the viewer is both actor and performer in the installation. The title of the environment refers to perceptual potentials that are located in the real, but point beyond reality.

Exhibitions 1989

Im Netz der Systeme, Ars Electronica ’89, Linz, AT

1991

ARTEC ’91, 2nd International Biennale in Nagoya, Nagoya, JP

1991

Les Images en Folies, Centre valaisan du film et de la photographie, Martigny, CH

 Installation view (detail), Ars Electronica ’89, Linz, 1989

The Moving Recipient

DER ANDERE BEOBACHTER

1991/1992

Approaching the video installation Der andere Beobachter (The Other Observer), visitors find themselves amid five offset vertical projection surfaces hanging from the ceiling. They enter the picture as shadows and traverse the image space. A fragmented eye can be made out, moving and twitching in the act of seeing. The iris reflects electronically manipulated moving images, black-and-white excerpts from Siodmak and Hitchcock films. As they walk

Video installation Five-part projection screen, analog video, video player, video projector with rotary motor, computer Collaborator Kike García Roldan

around, observers try to find the optimal point of view in order to see the eye as a whole. However, the installation is constructed in such a way that this perspective simply does not materialize. The projection’s depth of field alternates between the individual surfaces, shifting from sharp to blurred. In this sense, the projector assumes the focusing function of the eye. As in other video installations, the moving image has no representational function in this work. Rather, the conventional dispositifs of image and viewer are reconfigured in their relation to each other: a view of the panels is imperative, however the ideal standpoint has been impeded. A cinema apparatus is introduced, but the screen looks back, reflected in the iris, alluding to another space, an environment inaccessible to the observer.

Exhibitions 1991

Transformator media art festival, public spaces, St. Veit/Glan, AT

1992

Der andere Beobachter, KunstSchauFenster, Dornbirn, AT

1993

Beyond the Screen, solo exhibition, allerArt Bludenz, Bludenz, AT

1999

Hitchcock, Kunsthalle Tirol, Hall in Tyrol, AT

2004

Patterns of Perception, California Science Center, Los Angeles, US

 Installation view, allerArt Bludenz, Bludenz, 1993

 Installation view, California Science Center, Los Angeles, 2004

LIGHT OBJECTS AND INSTALLATIONS WITH LIGHT STICKS—AN INTRODUCTION TO THE TECHNOLOGY

The Moving Recipient

Model view: each LED row flashes between 7,000 and 20,000 times per second, thereby displaying the characters sequentially (column per column) one after the other.

Focused (static) vision: a vertically flickering bar is being perceived.

Vision in motion (pivoting gaze): the eye “scans” the sequentially displayed luminous points; a word / an icon is being perceived as an after-image.

Since the early 1990s, Ruth Schnell has been working with a

films as moving images). The outcome image can only be

specific technology, one she herself co-created, that emulates

perceived individually, unlike a painting or a sculpture the

high-frequency light impulses reproduced on vertical rows of

“image” does not exist in space but is rather “projected”

LEDs. The sequential flickering displays diverse visual content

in the brain. It is the individual spectator in motion who

that can only be perceived by the recipient while moving.

sees several, already past situations as a single present.

Schnell refers to these works as “light objects” and installations using “light sticks,” and they can be found

Schnell’s light objects and installations with light sticks give

in many different contexts within her practice.

access to the nature of the perceptual process itself, when that which is immaterial (pure light) suddenly materializes

The same core technology is always used: depending on the

when caught in time by the human perceptual apparatus.

work in question, words, icons, and pictograms are divided

The point of recognition lasts only for fleeting seconds,

into points and lines and relayed as these high-frequency

to quickly disappear again outside the range of human

light impulses that flicker across the bar. As such, the content

perception. For the viewer passing by, the content seems

is only accessible to the viewer if they deliberately look away

to emerge from the bars, appearing as hologram-like

from the object rather than directly at it.

translucent words or images in front of the architecture and the environment. In the interplay between movement,

This apparatus triggers a perceptual phenomenon that

perception, and language, a spatio-temporal mode of

operates in a very similar way to the physiological afterimage,

viewing is established.

whereby an image is first received by the retina and later decoded by the brain. The phenomenon happens because photoreceptors in the retina are unable to separate individual images that appear sequentially in a frame rate higher than 20 images per second (which is why we see

110

COMBATSCIENCE AUGMENTED

2018

COMBATscience Augmented is a 2018 mixed reality installation based on the content of the COMBATscience theater environment, which was adapted into a single-user experience for the HoloLens. The HoloLens is a smart headset that merges physical and digital environments into an interactive mixed reality: users move and participate in an immersive duplication of spatial, acoustic, and visual layers of perception. Building on COMBATscience, the real-life biographies of the German scientist couple Fritz Haber and Clara Immerwahr form the starting point of the narration. Haber, who actively devoted his knowledge to the service of war, and Immerwahr, the pacifist, stand paradigmatically for different approaches to scientific research and ethical responsibility. While COMBATscience tackled these questions against the backdrop of the First World War, the mixed reality installation COMBATscience Augmented shifts the focus to contemporary fields of research. A spotlight is cast on the gray zone of dual use: the application of research findings for both civilian and military purposes, from Haber’s ammonia synthesis to nuclear research and artificial intelligence. In the installation, viewers wear a HoloLens headset and move freely in the respective exhibition space. Within the site-specific virtual architecture, digital holographic scenarios unfold for the user amid the real environment. The main

Mixed reality installation HoloLens (development edition; from 2021 on: HoloLens 2), holder; virtual elements: text and grid architecture, video with sound (interactive), sound spots, film footage; publication, A6 format In cooperation with Patricia Köstring Technology architect Thomas Hochwallner Support programming Johannes Hucek Peter Koger Norbert Unfug Scan and recording Thomas Hochwallner Fritz Ölberg Gabriel Schönangerer Software research Thomas Hochwallner Actors Maria Schuchter Thomas Kamper Duration walk-through approx. 10 min

elements are five video sequences featuring the protagonists Fritz Haber and Clara Immerwahr embedded in the digital scan of the real space. Spoken and performed by two actors, their gestures are reserved, more in the style of a tableau vivant. The texts of the four monologues and the main dialogue portray Haber’s and Immerwahr’s respective viewpoints on the purpose of science, how these perspectives drift apart, and the personal and political consequences thereof. The two figures are activated with a hand gesture. They turn to the viewers— like life-size moving holograms—and speak their text. The script exclusively employs original materials and statements attributed to the two scientists. Drawing upon these scenes, three-dimensional text objects and sound enhance spatialization and define a permeable virtual space. Text blocks can be traversed, while other quotations fixed in the virtual space remain out of reach. Unlike the responsive approach chosen for the display of the video protagonists, where movement and approximation cause the video image to turn or its audio track to become louder, the four autonomous sound spots can only be detected while moving through their narrow spatial radius.

 Video scene (still frame) before post production

 Screenshot HoloLens, first-person view, Museu de Aveiro / Santa Joana, Aveiro, 2021

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GEGEN DIE ZEIT

2001/2008

Like the earlier piece In between (1999), Gegen die Zeit (Against Time) is an installation initially conceived for the secularized church Johanniterkirche in Feldkirch. The video projection depicts a huge female arm holding a brush or sometimes a cleaning cloth. The arm moves across the floors and walls of the slightly darkened interior of the nave. A scrubbing sound is heard that is in sync with the hand movements.

Dynamic video projection Video projector, DMX-controlled mirror, DMX lighting console, analog video, video player, speakers Collaborator Kike García Roldan Technical assistant Roland Adlassnig

The choreographed confrontation between the specific architecture and the projection produces three-dimensional distortions of the image sequence, which remodel and accentuate the real space. The projection itself is conceived not as a frame or a window, but rather as a movement of cut-out content. This creates the feeling of an image set in motion through the activity of the projected body part. The nave becomes the three-dimensional screen. The projection is made using a computer-controlled mirror device. Because the length of the video choreography and the intervals of the mirror’s movements do not match, the projected sequence and movement in the space come together repeatedly in ever-new constellations. A virtual, absent body seems to act. The spatial composition and plausible perspective onto the arm allows the viewer an identification that is thwarted by the scaling. The work was adapted in 2008 for the exhibition Strom des Vergessens (River of Forgetfulness) at the Aktienkeller in Linz.

Exhibitions 2001

Gegen die Zeit, Johanniterkirche, Feldkirch, AT

2008

Strom des Vergessens, exhibition in the framework of the Linz 2009 project Tiefenrausch, Aktienkeller, Linz, AT

 Installation view, Aktienkeller, Linz, 2008

The Proprioceptive Body

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 Installation view, Johanniterkirche, Feldkirch, 2001

 Installation view, Aktienkeller, Linz, 2008

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MIRRORS OF THE UNSEEN (TABLEAUS) 2010/2011

Images are hypotheses about the visible. Only the viewers’ ability to connect what they see with their own knowledge and sentience makes a picture readable. The aluminum tableaus of the Mirrors of the Unseen series seem to present a glimpse inside the body. The motifs are applied onto the plates using a UV

Prints on aluminum Aluminum tableaus (200 × 100 cm), UV printing, and aluminum tableaus (200 × 100 cm), UV printing, colored transparent epoxy resin

printing technique. The technical images on which they are based are scaled and processed microscopic images used in the field of medicine, which are themselves the products of various imaging techniques. Whereas the site-specific piece of the same name at Hohenems Hospital has an impact on the viewer’s relationship with the illusionistic space it constructs, this series opens up new aesthetic fields of interpretation in relation to panel painting. The dimensions of the tableaus, at two by one meter squared, are about the same as those of a large mirror, encompassing the figure of the viewer and pointing back into the reality of the visible.

Representation and imaging techniques Human bone (electron microscopy) Stem cells (multi-photon microscopy) Red blood cells (optical microscopy) Unilamellar liposomes (cryogenic electron microscopy) Fibroblasts (fluorescence microscopy) Colonies of the cyanobacterium gloeotrichia (optical microscopy) Brain cells (simulation) Epidermis (optical microscopy)

Exhibitions 2011

Mirrors of the Unseen, solo exhibition, Grita Insam Gallery, Vienna, AT

2019

Call of Duty, solo exhibition, Lisi Hämmerle Gallery, Bregenz, AT

 Detail tableau, red blood cells, Grita Insam Gallery, Vienna, 2011

 Installation view, human bone and stem cells, Lisi Hämmerle Gallery, Bregenz, 2019

Uncertain Spaces

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235

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BETWEEN SPACES OF POWER AND ACTION

“The human landscape can be read as a landscape of exclusion.” —David Sibley 1

1 David Sibley, Geographies of Exclusion: Society and Difference in the West, introduction (London: Routledge, 1995), ix.

In Ruth Schnell’s work, the concept of territory essentially refers to an enclosed space. What happens when spaces overlap? How do their boundaries expand into spaces of action? Many works reside at the interfaces of spatial concepts, rise sculpturally between a before and behind, between private and public space. At the same time, Ruth Schnell repeatedly addresses territory as a real or imagined entity in the sense of an appropriated, controlled space. Here, inclusion and exclusion point to social power structures; “space” can be interpreted as a territorial zone constituting a state but also as a hegemonic social framework. Territories as spaces of power emerge in the social field, between social classes and genders; since the noughties, they have increasingly been mirrored in virtual economies and social landscapes. Mediatization, in turn, imposes and enables new perspectives. Many of Schnell’s works deal with war, as cruelty, as a struggle for supremacy, and in terms of its mediatized aesthetics, or they address inequality as a consequence of defending hegemonic claims and make the border itself the subject—be it a real, imaginary, or social one.

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PLÜSCHLOVE 1984

Plüschlove (Furry Love) utilizes computer technology to manipulate and transform

Video

love scenes taken from two classic films and blend them with coded animations.

Film material (digitized), computer animations, computer drawings, sound

The theme of the video revolves around trivial love. Peter Weibel’s suggested title, “False Papers,” emphasizes the idea of manipulated and altered representations. The work references the movies The 39 Steps by Alfred Hitchcock and High Sierra by Raoul Walsh, showcasing scenes depicting desire, intimacy, and

In collaboration with Gudrun Bielz Duration 4:30 min

distance. Through techniques like rasterization, mechanical deconstruction, electronic composition, colorization, overdrawing, stretching, and acceleration, Plüschlove creates studies of our constructed ideals. The video marks the first collaborative computer work with Gudrun Bielz. It was produced using a Commodore 64 with a digitizer and graphics tablet, a video camera (video format U-matic low band), and animations programmed in Basic.

Exhibitions 1984

1984—Meisterklasse Peter Weibel, Museum moderner Kunst Wien, Vienna, AT

1984

Computerkultur—Kunst aus Personalcomputern, University of Applied Arts Vienna, Vienna, AT

1985

Internationaler Experimentalfilm Workshop, Osnabrück, DE

1986

Terminal Kunst, Ars Electronica ’86, Linz, AT

1986

Forum des jungen Films, Axis video edition, DuMont publishers, Berlinale, Berlin, DE

2011

Perception, Kunstverein Baden, Baden, AT

 Video still frames, 1984

Territories

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 Installation view, Freizone Dorotheergasse, Vienna, 1988

Territories

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RUTH SCHNELL—THEATER AS WORLD AND (ART)WORLD AS THEATER. CLAUDIA GIANNETTI

Essay Claudia Giannetti

338

In a monologue (or more like a statement) filmed in the seating area of a theater, Albert Camus reflects on the feeling of satisfaction he gets from theater. While walking along the aisle, with empty seats on either side and the stage behind him, the curtain open, he explains that one of the places he feels happiest in the world is the theater. “This reflection is less banal than it might seem,” he states, as he introduces the idea of conceiving theatrical space as a refuge. Some people seek out shelter by drawing back into their private life while, as he notes, “I know more people who have found refuge in public life to escape from their private lives.” He then concludes that his effort will be focused on finding himself “as soon as possible, in one of the places where I experience happiness, that is, the theater.” 1

1 “Albert Camus sur le théatre et le bonheur,” produced by the Office national de radiodiffusion télévision française, video (French), 03:22, 1959, https://www.ina.fr/ina-eclaireactu/video/i08079936/albert-camusle-theatre-et-le-bonheur.

The first time I saw this fragment of the recording, it seemed like Camus was being sincere. The second time, I had a sense that there was a touch of irony in his tone of voice. The third time I watched it, I recognized that he was playing a role. Recapitulating, I came to the conclusion that this was a sincerely ironical role-playing of our reality: people try to be happy by seeking refuge in The Great Theater of the World (now more than ever mediated by technologies and networks), to escape from the crude “realities” of life or inner emptiness. This mention of the title of an auto sacramental drama by Calderón de la Barca,

2 Pedro Calderón de la Barca, El gran teatro del mundo, verses 320/325, Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, https://www. cervantesvirtual.com/obra-visor/ el-gran-teatro-del-mundo--0/ html/ff39e206-82b1-11df-acc7002185ce6064_3.html.

El gran teatro del mundo (c. 1633/1636) is not gratuitous. Camus was a great admirer of the audacity of Calderón’s thought, who he felt was the greatest dramatic genius that Spain had ever produced. “Ya sé que si para ser / el hombre elección tuviera, / ninguno el papel quisiera / de sentir y padecer; / todos quisieran hacer / el de mandar y regir, / sin mirar, sin advertir / que en acto tan singular / aquello es representar, / aunque piense que es vivir.” 2 [I know that if the choice were left to you / No one would want the parts where feeling pain / Or suffering is required; everyone / Would choose those roles where power and command / Come into play—it’s strange they never notice / That these roles are just a part to play / Not life itself.] 3 This subject was not new to Calderón, who in La vida es sueño (Life Is a Dream, c. 1627/29), a play written years before his theatrum mundi, had already articulated his skepticism regarding human apprehension and comprehension of reality. In

3 English version: Calderón de la Barca, The Great Theater of the World, trans. Rick Davis, Theater 34, no. 1 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), 128–151, here: 133. In the setting description for the staging of the piece, Calderón used the metaphor of the doors in verses 625–30, which represent entering life and leaving it. “Con música se abren a un tiempo dos globos: en el uno estará un trono de gloria, y en él el Autor sentado; en el otro ha de haber representación con dos puertas: en la una pintada una cuna y en la otra un ataúd.” English version: “Music plays; two globes open at the same time: in one, a glorious throne, on which sits the AUTHOR; the other should contain two doors, one of which is painted with the image of a cradle, and on the other, a coffin.” Op. cit., 138.

both pieces, he articulated with great discernment and enormous ingenuity his advanced theory of the construction of reality. In this way, Calderón’s suspicion appeared two centuries before Jeremy Bentham’s theory of fiction,4 and more

4 Cf. Jeremy Bentham, The Book of Fallacies (London: John and H. L. Hunt, 1824).

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BIOGRAPHIES

Annex

356

Ruth Schnell

is a media artist and professor at the

Chris Salter

is a professor and director of the Immersive

University of Applied Arts Vienna, where she heads

Arts Space at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), CH.

the Department of Digital Arts (until autumn 2023).

His artistic work has been seen internationally, including

Grounded in a critical investigation of the latest media

at the Venice Architecture Biennale, Barbican Centre, and

technology, her artistic practice explores modes of

Berliner Festspiele. He is the author of Entangled (2010), Alien

perception and concepts of reality. Her works have

Agency (2015), and Sensing Machines (2022), all MIT Press.

been exhibited throughout Austria and internationally. In 1990, she was a participant in the 44th Venice Biennale

Jill Scott

(Aperto, with Gudrun Bielz); in 1995, she represented

science researcher. She is a professor emerita at the Zurich

Austria with other artists at the 46th Venice Biennale.

University of the Arts (ZhdK), CH, and founded the Artists-

is a media artist, curator, writer, and art and

in-Labs Program in 2000. Her own artwork spans forty-four Peter Weibel (editor)

was a media artist, art and media

years of production about the human body and body politics.

theorist, curator, director of the ZKM | Center for Art and

In the last twenty years, she has focused on human health

Media Karlsruhe (until 2023), head of the Peter Weibel

based on research into molecular biology, neuroscience,

Research Institute for Digital Cultures, Vienna, and founder

botany, and ecology. She has had many international

of Europe’s first media art class (Master Class for Visual

exhibitions in both art and science venues. She also curates

Media Design) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

the LASER Salon in Zurich for Leonardo, the International Society for Arts, Sciences, and Technology, US, and writes

Katharina Gsöllpointner (editor)

is a media and art

books on art and science (Springer and De Gruyter).

theorist with a special focus on the crossover of media aesthetics and digital technologies. Since 2019, she

Patricia Köstring

is the head of the department International Programs in

cultural publicist. In the 1990s, together with Stephan Maier,

Sustainable Developments and since 2023 also head of the

she ran the Köstring/Maier Gallery in Munich, an art space

Art × Science School for Transformation at the University

dedicated to contemporary minimalism and site-specific

of Applied Arts Vienna. From 1991 to 1995, together with

artistic practice. Since moving to Austria in 1998, she has

Peter Weibel, she was responsible for the conception

been working in the fields of contemporary art and cultural

and realization of the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz.

politics. Since 2014, she is a senior artist at the Department

is a Munich-born and Vienna-based

of Digital Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Claudia Giannetti

is a researcher in the fields of

contemporary art, aesthetics, and media art specialized

Patrícia J. Reis

in the relation between art, science, and technology.

researcher whose practice encompasses different formats

She is a theoretician, writer, and exhibition curator. For

and media to examine our relationship with technology

nearly two decades, she was director and/or art director

interactively and sensorially. Reis studied painting (ESAD.

of art institutions including ACC L’Angelot, ES, MECAD\

CR, PT, 2004), media art (Masters, Lusófona University, PT,

Media Centre of Art & Design, ES, Fundação Eugenio de

2011), and holds a Ph.D. in art (University of Évora, PT, 2016).

Almeida, PT, and the Edith-Russ-Haus for Media Art, DE.

Since 2015, she is a lecturer at the Department of Digital

is a Vienna-based media artist and

Arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and since 2012, she is a board member of the Mz* Baltazar’s Lab collective.

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PHOTO CREDITS Roland Adlassnig: 211–213, 332; Sigrun Appelt: 278–279; Adolf Bereuter: 231–233; City of Offenburg / T. Klettner: 79; Lea Dörl: 323; EnBW AG: 90, 92–93; Mischa Erben: 244–245; Kike García Roldan: 18, 37, 39, 40–41, 48, 142–143; Roland Haas: 301, 303, 321; Lisi Hämmerle Gallery: 235, 331; Thomas Hochwallner: 115; Rainer Iglar: 66–67; Birgit und Peter Kainz: 95–97, 101, 103, 109, 236–237, 293–295; Ralf Bodo Kliem: 239; Klomfar & Sengmüller: 22, 55-57, 156–157, 162–163, 200–201, 203–205, 207; Rafael Ludescher: 308; MARCHIVUM, Bildsammlung, KF023310: 81; mumok—Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien / Klomfar & Sengmüller: 158, 160; Li Chibin: 106, 108; Niki Passath: 316–317; Alexander Pausch: 73–75, 214–219, 297–299; Photo Deltsios: 266, 268, 270–271; Johannes Rauchenberger: 24, 65, 325–327; Sebastien Roy: 24, 249–251, 253; Otto Saxinger: 169–170, 225; Ruth Schnell / Gudrun Bielz: 16, 42–47, 132–135, 136–139, 185, 186–187, 189–191, 192, 261, 262–263, 264–265, 269, 277; Ruth Schnell / Martin Kusch: 23; Roland Schöny: 310–311; Margherita Spiluttini: 16, 265; Arye Wachsmuth: 18, 193–197, 342; Günter Richard Wett: 254; Wolfgang Wössner: 20, 148–151 All other pictures © Ruth Schnell and Bildrecht Vienna

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The present publication summarizes over forty years of my artistic exploration of perception, concepts of reality, and spatial questions. The WORKBOOK was preceded by extensive research to review and prepare materials related to my often temporary media art works. Approximately 100 works were documented, with some resisting archiving and documentation. Without the enthusiasm and professionalism of my companions on this journey, the WORKBOOK would not have taken its current form. I express my gratitude to my colleagues Patricia Köstring and Patrícia J. Reis for their perseverance, creativity, and good spirits during the editorial process. Constantin Demner, who visually implemented our concept, was a source of constructive input. Anja SeipenbuschHufschmied and Barbara Wimmer from the publications department of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, along with Katharina Holas from the De Gruyter publishing house, provided invaluable support. Ulrike Rieger, acting as a bridge between the Viennese and Karlsruhe worlds, ensured optimal communication with editor Peter Weibel. Katharina Gsöllpointner and Rector Gerald Bast were immensely important. Katharina Gsöllpointner seamlessly took over as second editor of the WORKBOOK after the unexpected passing of Peter Weibel, enriching the project with her expertise. Gerald Bast consistently supported my work in teaching and artistic research at the University of Applied Arts Vienna with great commitment, curiosity, and empathy. I am grateful to Veronika Schnell for providing insightful feedback on theory and contextualization over the last forty years, and to Lisi Hämmerle for accompanying my work as my gallerist for nearly three decades. My thanks for support—in many ways—also go to Roland Adlassnig, Wolfgang Fiel, Kike García Roldan, Roland Haas, Stefan Istvanits, Roswitha Janowski-Fritsch, Martin Kusch, Gerhard Johann Lischka, Karlheinz Pichler, Johannes Rauchenberger, Margareta Sandhofer, Jeffrey Shaw, and Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein. Lastly, I am deeply grateful to Peter Weibel. His work and impact in media art have been a constant source of inspiration. He accompanied me as a professor, mentor, colleague, and feedback provider at crucial points in my artistic career. It is a great honor that he assumed the editorship of this book and followed its development until early 2023, alongside his numerous other projects.

Ruth Schnell Vienna, July 2023

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Editors Peter Weibel Katharina Gsöllpointner Concept and editing Ruth Schnell Patricia Köstring Patrícia J. Reis Project Management “Edition Angewandte” on behalf of the University of Applied Arts Vienna Anja Seipenbusch-Hufschmied / Barbara Wimmer, Vienna, AT Content and Production Editor on behalf of the Publisher Katharina Holas, Vienna, AT Text credits © authors

Bibliographic information published by the German National Library The German National Library lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in other ways, and storage in databases. For any kind of use, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained. ISSN 1866-248X ISBN 978-3-11-124998-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-125010-6 © 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston www.degruyter.com

Translation from German into English Peter Blakeney & Christine Schöffler, Vienna, AT Translation from Spanish into English (text Claudia Giannetti) Jeffrey Swartz, Barcelona, ES Proofreading/copyediting Charlotte Maconochie, Vienna, AT Scott Clifford Evans, Vienna, AT Layout, cover design, and typography Studio Elastik, Constantin Demner, Vienna, AT Image editing Pixelstorm Litho & Digital Imaging, Vienna, AT Leonie Licht, Vienna, AT Thomas Hochwallner, Vienna, AT Hans Ljung, Vienna (cover), AT Printing Holzhausen, the book-printing brand of Gerin Druck GmbH, Wolkersdorf, AT Paper Munken Print White 115 gsm Algro Design Uno 300 gsm Typefaces Trade Gothic Next (Linotype) Neue Haas Grotesk (Linotype) Source Code (Adobe Originals)

www.ruthschnell.org

Realized and printed with the financial support of

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