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灵赋 Psychoprosa
艺术家：托马斯·费因斯坦（Thomas Feuerstein）
展期：2016.03.26 - 06.26
地点：新时线媒体艺术中心
地址：上海市普陀区莫干山路50号18号楼
新时线媒体艺术中心（CAC）即将举办奥地利艺术家托马斯·费因斯坦（Thomas Feuerstein）中国首次个展：“灵赋” （Psychoprosa）。本展览为CAC 2016年度首场展览，将从3月26日至6月26日，为观众呈现一组由19件作品贯连而成的大型装置作品。
托马斯·费因斯坦来自奥地利城市因斯布鲁克，1980s-1990s期间他于因斯布鲁克大学修读艺术史与哲学。其90年代的创作以检验全球化社会语境下的媒体与技术条件为特点，后转向对生物技术议题的探究。其艺术创作由跨界出发，藉此审视横亘于不同学科、思想方向、研究与科学领域以及政治与社会之间的交界面。在此过程中，他驾轻就熟地漫步于科学事实、神话迷信以及未来科幻视界之间。在展览“灵赋”中，艺术家构想了一个处于艺术与自然科学实验陈设的边界之上的宏大装置。他以一套相似的主题将系列新作与早前的创作勾连起来，从而创造出多层次的叙事，并指向一个在各种新奇的生物技术之可能性塑造下的社会未来。
展览包含各种实验室器皿、设备和冰箱集群等，它们借由可活动的管道系统相互连接。管道将绿色或无色的液体在诸多站点间递送。艺术家分别为不同场景给予了富有寓意的称谓如：“温室”、“门”、“实验室厨房”、“冷却室”、“工厂”。这些通过水管相互连通的设备与物体看起来如同具备主动行为能力的主角：玻璃雕塑里的各种物质在隐形的实验室助手们的操作下而发生了转变，冰箱门诡异地打开又关上，仿佛受了魔鬼或幽灵的驱使。一种合成物质通过化学反应从绿藻和菌菇中萃取而出，从而创造了自然界不曾存在的分子psilamine。此过程余留的生物团则形成了一种粘性物质，该物质在受热、冷却与混合之后粘滞稠度进一步提升：浓密的丝与包裹的茧交织在一起形成一种透明的液态雕塑。假若将psilamine这一“分子雕塑”吞服，我们感知中那原本固态的物质则将会液化，并开始流动。如此，该物质的精神作用——当然观众无法实际尝试，而只可依托于想象——则以一个真实过程反映于展览中。对内外世界之边界的跨越与混淆构成了费因斯坦此次展览“灵赋”的核心层面。究其实际意义与主题性意义，弥漫于整个展览的粘液一方面指涉恐怖小说及其早期大师之一H·P·拉夫克拉夫特（1890-1937），而另一方面，它又作为一个社会隐喻强调了对个体定义及社会边界的消融等诸问题。
“温室”，2015
“门”，2015
“实验室厨房”，2015
“冷却室”，2015
“工厂”，2015
在展厅入口的“L”型墙面上展示的28幅平版印刷插图与艺术家所著科幻小说《他是个黏糊糊的家伙》（For He’s a Jelly Goo Fellow）构成平行叙事，该小说则为展览的文本起源。系列插图与小说围绕着“粘液”这一无可名状的物质为主题，染指科学、技术、精神以及万物有灵论，进而去诠释在渴望自然， 同时也希冀技术的矛盾中被撕裂的当今世界。分布于CAC500平方米展览空间的整个装置生动地演绎了新分子psilamine与粘液的创造过程并将其成果展示予观众。“温室”浸润于一片绿色幽光中，在此展示了生物反应器培养的绿藻和菌菇，以及由实验室设备、雕塑、光源及未来世界的室内植物构成的混合雕塑——且有着Iuturna或Élaine这样饶有兴味的人格化的名字。流动着循环物质的水管犹如三维的立体图画般地在展厅地面上逶迤蛇行，从“温室”延伸到下一个雕塑设备“门”——绿藻在此被萃取并过滤，余留的纯水则流向下一环节，用于粘液的制造。在“实验室厨房”中，观众将看到两个由实验室器皿制成的雕塑《D.女士》（Mrs D.）与《P.先生》（ Mr P.），以及两件代表新合成分子psilamine的装置：《婴儿Psi 》（Baby Psi）由实验室细颈瓶制成并形象地呈现了psilamine的分子结构，而《裸盖菇之语》（Psiloprose）则展示了从一个打字机中生长出的晶体psilamine。在一个以虚构的分子雕塑为支撑的玻璃台面上，《必比大叔》（Uncle Bib）的硅胶胸像剧烈地摇晃；在他的果冻状形态使人联想到黏液的同时，《冷壳》（Kalte Rinde）则视叔本华所有的著作都被黏滑而干燥的腐物侵蚀，恰如哲学家的世界观。展览最后两站“冷却室”和“工厂”呈现了粘液的生产和处理过程。光线幽微的“冷却室”里陈列着十几台大小不一的白色冰箱，里面存放着罐装的粘液。而“工厂”中壮观的《自然奥秘学园》（Accademia dei Secreti）则对整个装置作了升华性的总结。在这里，透明的粘液被抽取到巨型玻璃器皿中。艺术家值此向观众开启了“粘液时代”的篇章：在粘液时代，人类将以原生质的状态融合形成一种新的集群。
小说《他是个黏糊糊的家伙》插图之一，2014
《D.女士》与《P.先生》，2015
《婴儿Psi 》，2015
展览标题“灵赋”（Psychoprosa）微妙地融合了两个概念——“psycho”指向带有个人经验与感知的内在或灵性的生命，而“prosa”则意指叙事或科学文献——从而揭示了一种艺术家称之为“观念叙事”（conceptual narration）的特殊叙事方法。费因斯坦由此将自然与文化，生命与非生命，有机物与无机物，以及人与人造物之间的关联呈现出来，并将事实与虚构融入一个密实的结构，进而消解二元对立及界限，以熟悉的元素、系统与物件讲述新的故事。
关于艺术家
托马斯·费因斯坦于1968年出生在奥地利城市因斯布鲁克。他于因斯布鲁克大学（University of Innsbruck）修读艺术史与哲学，并于1995年获博士学位。他以艺术家兼作者的身份活跃于美术与媒体艺术领域。1992年至1994年间，与克劳斯·斯特里克纳联合担任《媒体.艺术.通道》杂志编辑，该杂志由维也纳Passagen出版社出版。1992年成立交互媒体通信传输办公室和蒂罗尔州媒体艺术协会（Medien.Kunst.Tirol.）。1992年与1993年受奥地利国家科学部电子空间艺术和艺术与建筑部邀请开展委约研究。自1997年起，他在维也纳应用艺术大学（University for Applied Arts Vienna）、伯尔尼艺术大学（Bern University of the Arts）、苏黎世F+F艺术与媒体设计学校（F+F School of Art and Media Design Zurich）、因斯布鲁克大学（University of Innsbruck）、福拉尔贝格州应用科学大学（Applied Science University Vorarlberg）以及萨尔兹堡莫札特音乐院（University Mozarteum Salzburg）等院校担任讲师及客座教授等职位。
托马斯·费因斯坦的作品与项目采用广泛多样的媒介。它们包含装置、环境、物件、图绘、油画、雕塑、摄影、影像、广播剧以及网络艺术。其重要方面有诸如言语与视觉元素之间的交互作用，以及对事实与虚构之间的潜在关联、艺术与科学之间的互动所作的挖掘探索等。为此，托马斯·费因斯坦构建了一种其称之为“观念叙事”（conceptual narration）的方法。自80年代末起，他开始探究算法艺术的可能性。而在90年代早期，其首批网络装置着眼于构建现实的经济与大众媒介条件。《有机生命培育项目》（The Biophily project,1995-2002）引发了在面对生物技术与基因工程时所产生的有关人的新概念的讨论。其它项目则考察个体性与社会性之间的相互作用，构想有关熵的美学，并就文化演变过程发展出一种有关精灵之事物（daimonology）的研究。
媒体垂询：
秦文娴
sasa.qin@chronusartcenter.org
+86 21 52715789
PSYCHOPROSA
Artist: Thomas Feuerstein
Duration: 2016.03.26 - 06.26
Venue: Chronus Art Center
Address: BLDG.18, No.50 Moganshan RD., Shanghai
Chronus Art Center(CAC) is pleased to present Psychoprosa, the first solo exhibition in China by the Austrian artist Thomas Feuerstein. Psychoprosa is a large installation consisted of nineteen artworks that together transform CAC’s 500 square meters gallery space into a studio reminiscent of a mysterious alchemist’s workshop while gracefully arranged akin to a tidy and ordered modern laboratory.
Thomas Feuerstein comes from Innsbruck, where he studied art history and philosophy in the 1980s and 1990s. His works in the 1990s can be characterized by an examination of the media and technological conditions under which a globalized society unfolds, before he began to investigate questions on biotechnology. His artistic starting point is one of boundary - crossing, whereby he examines the interfaces between different disciplines, directions of thought, fields of research and science, and between politics and society. In this process he wanders effortlessly among scientific facts, mythical superstition and futuristic science - fiction visions. In the exhibition Psychoprosa the artist has conceived a spectacular installation on the borderline between art and scientific experiment. He connects new groups of work, as well as earlier pieces with a similar set of themes to produce a multilayered narrative pointing to the future of a society shaped by its novel biotechnological possibilities.
The show is made up of laboratory vessels, equipment and refrigerators connected through a system of flexible tubes that transports green or colorless liquids from one stop to the next. In accordance with the appliances present in the room, Feuerstein has given the individual areas telling titles: Greenhouse, Gate, Laboratory Kitchen, Cooling Chamber and Factory. Linked by pipes, the apparatuses and objects seem like active protagonists: inside glass sculptures, substances are transformed by invisible laboratory assistants, and refrigerators open and close as if inspired by demons or ghosts. A chemical process is employed to extract a synthetic substance from algae and fungi to create the molecule psilamine, which does not yet occur in nature. The remaining biomass comprises a slimy material, which develops a viscous consistency after heating, cooling and mixing: thick threads and veils form a transparent, liquid sculpture. If we were to consume the ‘molecular sculpture’s psilamine, solid objects would deliquesce and begin to flow in our perception. In this way the psychotropic effect of the substance-which the exhibition visitor does not experience but can only imagine - is reflected in the exhibition as a real process. Crossing and confusing the borderlines between our inner and external worlds is a central aspect of Feuerstein’s Psychoprosa. The slime that permeates the entire exhibition in a real as well as a thematic sense refers, on the one hand, to horror fiction and one of its early masters, H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937); on the other hand it highlights - as a social metaphor - questions regarding the definition of the individual and the dissolution of social boundaries.
GREENHOUSE，2015
GATE，2015
LABORATORY KITCHEN，2015
COOLING CHAMBER，2015
FACTORY，2015
On the “L” shaped wall next to the exhibition entrance is mounted a series of 28 lithographic prints that unwinds parallel to the story For He’s a Jelly Goo Fellow, the literary source for the exhibition. While the drawings and the story place the formless material slime at the centre of an approach nourished by scientific, technological, psychic and animistic aspects to understand a world that is torn between a longing for nature and technologization, the entire installation which branches off into the 500 square meters exhibition space serves to demonstrate how psilamine and the slime are produced, and to display the products.The Greenhouse is dipped into an atmospheric green where the algae and fungi are cultivated in bioreactors along with hybrid sculptures anthropomorphized and personified by names such as Iuturna or Élaine, combining laboratory apparatus, sculpture, standard lamp, and futuristic house plant. The tubes containing circulating substances turn into the lines of a three - dimensional drawing as they snake their way through the exhibition space. From the Greenhouse onwards, they lead to a sculptural apparatus titled Gate, where the algae are filtered and the water needed for the slime production is processed. In the Laboratory Kitchen, viewers are then to encounter the two sculptural laboratory vessels Mrs D. and Mr P., as well as the newly extracted psilamine presented in two artworks. Baby Psi is made up of laboratory flasks and again visualizes the modular structure of psilamine, while Psiloprose sees crystalline psilamine grow out of the printwheel of a typewriter. Further on a glass table top that rests on a fictitious molecular sculpture, a bust made of silicone named Uncle Bib rattles vigorously; while its jelly - like consistency reminiscent of slime, Kalte Rinde sees Schopenhauer’s complete works infested with a slimy dry rot, appropriate to the philosopher’s conception of the world. The two final stops in the exhibition, the Cooling Chamber and the Factory, see the slime being manufactured and processed. The dimly lit Cooling Chamber contains innumerable refrigerators that hold the tinned slime. The spectacular Accademia dei Secreti which forms the conclusion and climax to the entire installation sees transparent slime being pumped through enormous glass vessels in vast quantities. The artist now introduces his audience to the “slime age”, during which humanity will protoplasmically merge to form a new collective.
one lithograph of For He’s A Jelly Goo Fellow , 2014
MRS D. and MR P.，2015
BABY PSI，2015
The title of the exhibition Psychoprosa fuses two notions - “psycho” points to an inner or spiritual life with personal experience and perception while “prosa” indicates narrative or scientific literature - that subtly reveals a special narrative method, which the artist calls conceptual narration in which he exhibits correlations between nature and culture, living and dead matter, organism and object, man and machine while fusing facts and fictions into a dense structure, to dissolve dichotomies and borders, and tell new stories using familiar elements, systems and objects.
About the Aritst
Thomas Feuerstein was born in 1968 in Innsbruck, Austria. He studied art history and philosophy at the University of Innsbruck and received a doctorate degree in 1995; he works as artist and author in the fields of fine art and media art. From 1992 to 1994, along with with Klaus Strickner, was co-editor of the magazine Medien. Kunst. Passagen., published by Passagen Verlag in Vienna. In 1992, he founded the office for intermedia communication transfer and the association Medien.Kunst.Tirol. In 1992 and 1993, Feuerstein’s received research commissions from the Austrian Ministry of Science on art in electronic space and art and architecture. Since 1997, he has assignments as lecturer as well as visiting professor at the University for Applied Arts Vienna, Bern University of the Arts, the F+F School of Art and Media Design Zurich, University of Innsbruck, Applied Science University Vorarlberg and the University Mozarteum Salzburg.
Thomas Feuerstein’s works and projects are realized using various media. They are comprised of installations, environments, objects, drawings, paintings, sculptures, photographies, videos, radio plays, and net art. Some of the crucial aspects are the interplay between verbal and visual elements, the unearthing of latent connections between fact and fiction, as well as the interaction between art and science. For his purposes, Feuerstein has come up with an artistic method he calls “conceptual narration” .Since the end of the eighties, he has investigated the possibilities of algorithmic art. Beginning in the early nineties, the first net installations looked at the economic and mass medial conditions for the construction of reality. The Biophily project (1995 to 2002) puts up for discussion a new idea of man in the face of bio-technology and genetic engineering. Other projects examine the interplay between individuality and sociality, formulate the aesthetics of entropy, and develop a daimonology of cultural processes.
Media Contact:
Sasa Qin
sasa.qin@chronusartcenter.org
+86 21 52715789
新时线媒体艺术中心（CAC）成立于2013年，系国内首家致力于媒体艺术之展示、研究/创作及学术交流的非营利性艺术机构。 CAC位于上海M50创意园区，拥有800多平方米的多功能空间。CAC通过展览、驻留、奖学金、讲座、工作坊及相关文献的梳理与出版， 为媒体艺术在全球语境中的论述、生产及传播开拓了一个多样化且富有活力的平台。
Established in 2013, Chronus Art Center (CAC) is China’s first nonprofit art organization dedicated to the presentation, research / creation and scholarship of media art. CAC with its exhibitions, residency-oriented fellowships, lectures and workshop programs and through its archiving and publishing initiatives, creates a multifaceted and vibrant platform for the discourse, production and dissemination of media art in a global context. CAC is positioned to advance artistic innovation and cultural awareness by critically engaging with media technologies that are transforming and reshaping contemporary experiences.
