Drafts rwa 2023
ink and graphite on paper
Maus rwa 2023
print
Metastabil (Gipsy, Bedřich, Ingo) 2023
video
Barbara Herold and Florian Huth explore themes through their collaborative artistic work that create natural intersections between nature and the systems associated with the processes of digital transformation and virtualization of our lives. Their focus is on the search for specific manifestations of the natural world, which they capture in their unique beauty and structure through various artistic approaches and then interpret using technological tools that allow them to incorporate aspects of computer processing or algorithmic automated procedures into the creative process. Using specifically defined criteria, these authors thus conduct a kind of pseudo-scientific inventory, linking new and old methods of measuring and recording or documenting reality.
For the exhibition Gardening of Soul, Barbara Herold and Florian Huth have prepared a series of projects drawing inspiration from site-specific research carried out during their residency at the Ústí nad Labem House of Arts. In the video series Metastabil, they focused on documenting rocking stones in the available surroundings, visiting the following sites in turn: Dürröhrsdorf near Dresden (DE), Rybničná-Bochov (CZ), Martinlamitz near Selbu (DE), Nagel near Marktredwitz (DE), Bedřichov (CZ), Jizerka (CZ), Szklarska Poręba (PL). Video loops taken during these expeditions record the physical interaction of the authors with these massive, seemingly rigid, yet fragile and unstable rock formations. In their unexpected movement, the eternity of nature is transformed into a metaphor for the threat, instability and uncertainty associated with the intensifying manifestations of the advancing environmental crisis. In the Real World Assets (rwa) series, Barbara Herold and Florian Huth capture the specifics of unique landscapes of sandstone cliffs along the Czech-German border, such as the climbing walls in Rájec, Tisá, Jetřichovice, and the basalt outcrops of Panská skála near Kamenický Šenov. By recording using 3D scanning and photogrammetry, they create abstracted models of the landscape that symbolize specific details that shape its unique character. These models are subsequently transformed into drawings realized using ink and graphite by the cutting plotter which works on the same base as CNC machines.
The captivating landscape frame is thus mediated to the viewers in the form of precise and rationally guided lines executed by the machine, which transform the emotion aroused by the beauty and majesty of nature into amazement at the aesthetic perfection of the records of its uniqueness, created by the cold tools of technological apparatuses.