Posts Tagged ‘Künstlerin’

Maria and Ana de Alvear – “Ancestors” (world premiere)

Posted by Thomas Donga-Durach

Client: Haus der Musik Innsbruck

On March 11, 2022, the piece “Ahnen” for chamber orchestra and multi-screen video projection by Maria and Ana de Alvear was premiered in the Great Hall of Haus der Musik Innsbruck. The title “Ahnen” (Ancestors) plays with the double meaning of the German word involving both ancestors and foreshadowing.

Madrid-born composer Maria de Alvear lives in Germany and Spain and seeks to reveal connections between different cultures and different art forms in her works. Video works by her sister, visual artist Ana de Alvear, often serve as inspiration and components of the compositions.

“Ahnen” was written in 2007 for two voices, hurdy-gurdy and video, but has now been performed as an orchestral work by the Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra.

235 Media handled the elaborate projection mapping onto the two narrow acoustic side walls and the back wall behind the orchestra, making the performance an intense immersive experience.

Hito Steyerl “Power Plants”

Posted by Thomas Donga-Durach

Client: Museum Ostwall, Dortmund

FLOWERS! Flowers in 20th and 21st Century Art

With 180 works by almost 50 artists*, the exhibition “FLOWERS! Flowers in 20th and 21st Century Art” offers a comprehensive overview of the motif of the flower in the art of the past and present century. The multi-channel video environment “Power Plants” by Hito Steyerl from 2019, set up by 235 Media in the Dortmunder U, is an example of the media-artistic further development of a theme that has inspired artists since the Baroque period until today.

The environment developed by Hito Steyerl consists of 18 LED video modules in different sizes from 50 x 100 cm to 100 x 200 cm and 18 LED text modules arranged in three steel frames. Each monitor-text unit is a “power plant” video sculpture created by neural networks. They form a virtual garden consisting of plants with ecological, medical and political powers. Here Hito Steyerl connects the concept of ruderal vegetation (from the Latin rudus ‘debris’), which sets itself up on fallow or devastated land that has been overused or kept free of vegetation, with the automated systems of reproduction and distribution of images and their effects on political systems that she has studied many times.