transreal+


performance and exhibition series together with Hannah Wimmer
Sala Terrena, Gallery of the University of Applied Arts,
Heiligenkreuzerhof, 1010 Vienna
20 03 – 11 05 24










Virtual spaces are with us. Sometimes they are very reminiscent of real templates on gamified metaverse platforms such as Second Life or Fortnite, sometimes they remain quite formless and yet are inextricably linked to us, for example as social media. They often take the form of niche forums, abstract constructs of binary code. They are all gaps in the internet where we can reinvent ourselves, accentuate parts of our personality and shed unloved character traits like a shell. These spaces are an integral part of our everyday (self-)perception. We use and discover them, consciously and unconsciously, gliding in and out with quick swipes. 

The exhibition transreal+ offers us the opportunity to explore this transition zone anew. Through performative processes, which are shown on the screens and projections in the space using a new entity linked with a performer, we can ask ourselves what friction and what overlaps arise when a body and a space alternate and shift form together. What friction arises when realities are shared. Everything begins at an origin as a calibration point, the coordinates 0,0,0 of the virtual world: The performer and her avatar constantly return to a marker in order to understand the dimensions and parameters of the spaces. Calibration becomes a physical ritual. Rituals not only create a sense of security and predictability, but also mark important life events such as births, deaths and significant changes in life. They help us to structure and cope with transitions and can certainly serve as strategies for appropriating the world: The body is updated and adapted. This becomes obvious in transreal+ when a motion capture suit is put on and the physical and virtual bodies finally find each other and act at the same pace. Out of breath together.

‘Are you born digital?’ asks theorist Bernhard Serexhe, alluding to the performative character that is inherent to digital worlds alongside their perpetual, rapidly advancing developments. He asks about a fundamental existence that is located in the immaterial: being born as a physical act. Bodies are dependent on infrastructures and energies. Infrastructures that are openly visible in the space in transreal+, and even more: the necessary devices, circuit boards and data carriers are even presented on a raised platform, their network of cables running through the exhibition space in its pictorial necessity. The energy flow of the avatar becomes the oxygen of the performer. 

One wants to compare, wondering where the boundaries between the avatar and the performer run, the boundaries to their representation as a sculptural 3D object. The human skin separates the real body from the surrounding space. It is a permeable organ, yet it separates the inside from the outside, defining the form of the subject. It is meant to protect and yet it is vulnerable. It envelops, encloses, spans and creates worlds. When we are born anew, we have to rediscover the world, find our way in it and grow into our bodies. The performers' body is encased in cables of a motion capture suit, the costume beneath designed by Anna Schall. 

The human skin is the equivalent of the so-called mesh in the coding language of 3D programs. It is put over a material and gives it a final form. The avatar's mesh is delicately engraved in acrylic panels in the exhibition space; its fragility only becomes apparent when light falls on it. Fragments of the virtual world bear witness to the resemblance: bulging bubbles can be found as references on the walls. The material is raw, despite its highly technical production. The fragmented floor is not only explored through our movements in the space, but oscillates between our real world and the representations on the screens, with the performers' avatar acting as a mediating medium. Transreal+ offers a place of visible blurring of boundaries: they become unclear through presence and absence. In their joint project, contemporary dancer Hannah Wimmer and multimedia artist Maximilian Prag break form and binary, discarding a body only to capture it again in binary code and reshape it. The setting documents a complex live process that is recaptured in three chapters over the duration of the exhibition and aims to find out what bodies can be in a space and how perception can be influenced. The accompanying sound performances are from MARAws and Idklang, who also designed the Avatas’ reactive sound. 


Artists: Hannah Wimmer & Maximilian Prag

Exhibition Sound & Sound Performance: Markus Steinkellner

Costume, Dramaturgy & choreographic Input: Anna Schall

Sound Performance: MARAws

Texts: Josepha Edbauer 

curatorial advice: Brooklyn J. Pakathi