Otto Beckmann
01. 12. 2021 - 23. 01. 2022
CNL is pleased to present an exhibition by Austrian sculptor, painter, and media artist Otto Beckmann (1908 - 1997).
The works are selected in collaboration with Norbert Palz, who also wrote the introduction below.
We would like to thank the archive of Otto Beckmann, Richard Beckmann and Dipl.-Ing. Oskar Beckmann.
The here presented works stem from a later period in Beckmann's oeuvre that lasted from the mid 1960ies until the late 1970ies, a phase during which he employed various forms of progressive technologies for his artistic practice.
These photographic re-editions, issued in close collaboration with the Archive Otto Beckmann, are created by a projection of a laser beam deflected from a mechanically treated optical surface. This image carrier (“optisch codierte Karte”) included symbol and words (“lettristische Methode”) undiscernible for the viewer. Shifting the beam’s position to the optical surface released complex variations of the luminous projections to be inspected and either photographically recorded or abandoned.
Beckmann’s interest in technology led to experimental works with early computer graphics, holographic imagery, digital sound technology, and algorithmically generated texts. His occupation culminated with the “atelier computer a.i 70/71”, a self-build analog computer constructed in 1970/71 by his son Oskar Beckmann, a Telecommunications engineer, that allowed an autonomous creation of algorithmic visual representations in 2D and 3D.
The artist’s brief dealing with modern technology was guided by his prior artistic practice, which had engaged with occultism, shamanistic rituals, free-masonry iconography, and dark magic. Beckmann applied late 20th-century technology and mathematics to mediate these older and darker subjects by encoding and triggering a sublime projection field through various interactive and representative interfaces. Beckmann methodically invented these to create works that were largely autonomous from human preconception but could serve as an emergent medium through which transcendental spheres could be tapped into.
Beckmann’s work has been featured in various exhibitions, for example at the ZKM Karlsruhe, Kunsthalle Bremen, Centre Pompidou Paris and Pinakothek der Moderne, where it is also part of their permanent collections.
Norbert Palz
Norbert Palz is a german architect, university professor and President of the Berlin University of the Arts since April 1, 2020
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Otto Beckmann
Thomas Webb
Thomas Webb’s deconstructs the entire idea of NFTs for his auction as artwork. He has created an entire website where buyers can purchase NFTs. Here he will display 10,000 fictional artist profiles created by an AI, complete with biographies, names and a portrait. Each of these artists are a piece costing a democratic 0.1ETH, although the buyer does not know which artist they have purchased until the auction is complete. Link available here . Buyers are each given a vote, so the collective viewers choose their favourite artist identity. The owner of that NFT, when will be revealed upon completion, will received 50% of the profits of all purchases.
The work uses data to expose the coded bias in the artworld and algorithms. His work looks at systemic structures of value, and reveals how the art game itself is rigged. The use of live data ranging from bitcoin prices to NASA databases to social media data to create artworks is central to Webb’s practise. He creates system that aim to control the viewer’s experience and become aware of the algorithms that are used to affect mood and freedom itself. Coming from a background in magic that developed into creative hacking, leading to projects with Konig Galerie, Ars Electronia, Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, Valentino, Mercedes and his own self-minted NFT works. Webb’s works question the future of art, technology and our own emotional existence.
Damien Roach
Damien Roach is a London-based artist, researcher and lecturer also known for his cross-media project, patten. He has exhibited at the Venice Biennale, Tate Britain, and Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen, created performances for London’s ICA and Tate Modern, alongside lysergic, exploratory curatorial projects, and also design and creative direction as 555-5555 for clients ranging from Wysing Art Centre to Disney.
The NFTs Roach has created all touch on the depictions of void, reflecting the human fascination with emptiness. These digital moving image works focus on gaps, absences, and blank spaces. From sink holes to the pupils of the eye, the series Four Types of Nothing teases out luminous, mirage-like apparitions from images depicting ‚nothing’ in various registers. They explicitly speak to the idea of the dematerialised object, auratic presence, the meanings and etymology of the word ‘ether’ and latent potential of the void. Nothing here is a space for dreaming, becoming, invention, revision and creation. These pieces continue his ongoing interest in perception and meaning, technology and popular culture.
Sara Ludy
Sara Ludy has been working with digital media for over two decades. Her animations pieces which range from sculptural to environmental, VR works and digital paintings explore the human relationship to immateriality and consciousness. From biological nature to the cosmos, fictional environments to immersive landscapes, Ludy’s spaces play with the intersection of thing and simulation. She has exhibited at the MCA Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, bitforms gallery, and Künstlerhaus Bethanien, and had work feature in publications including The New York Times, Art Forum and Art in America.
For this exhibition she has created two artworks manifesting as three NFTs, that touch on the concept of how a digital aura manifests, follows the work and circulates. Coming from a fine art background, she positions her work in the context of painting and her work reflects how the layering of paint can relate and echo in the formation of digital artworks. Here her work questions if an artwork’s ‘aura’ can transcend the blockchain and NFT context and ‘survive’. While raising critical questions about context and the blurring line between the traditional, digital and commercial art world, Ludy’s artworks remain experiential and explore on ideas of energy and transcendence.
Scorpion Dagger
Digital artist James Kerr is best known by his alter ego animation project Scorpion Dagger. His GIFs and short animations transform art history, in particular works from the early Renaissance, into animated comment on pop culture and the contemporary. He uses the iconography and landscapes of religious paintings transforms them with humour, irony and a touch of madness. Sitting somewhere between Terry Gilliam and punk skateboard videos, his works have been exhibited in exhibitions at Galerie Blanc and the Tate Britain, has been commissioned by clients including The New York Times, Bavarian State Opera and Gucci, and recently released his second AR fiction publication The Book of Daryll.
Kerr began making collaged GIFs from Giotto paintings after he completed his degree in Political Science. His stream of consciousness narratives range from a Bosch pool party to medieval mushroom trips. What makes them so engaging is also how they lightly highlight the innate weirdness in his art historical sources. The NFTs he has created for this exhibition showcase his innate satirical approach to art history and popular culture. After watching his playful work it is hard to see Western Christian characters and narratives from saints to Christ in the same way again.
Francesca Gavin
Curator Francesca Gavin was the co-curator of Manifesta11, and has created exhibitions at Somerset House, Palais de Tokyo and MU. She is the author of seven books, including Watch This Space which examined the contemporary relationship to the screen and how artists are working with digital space. Gavin is the Editor of LIMBO magazine and is a contributing editor at Financial Times How to Spend It Magazine, Kaleidoscope, Twin, Good Trouble, and Beauty Papers, and presents a radio show on art and music on NTS.live called Rough Version.
