Projects – Reagenz

Aleatorium

Jun–Jul 2021

Nayarí Castillo & Hanns Holger Rutz

In the first Reagenz show after the Covid and winter break 2020/21, we present a new work in progress that assembles found objects, ceramic fragments, robot arms, sounds, light, and spatial text into an exploratory installation. 19.06.–11.07. Tue–Sat 14:00–19:00h.

This installation explores “uncoordinated” ways of collaboration, bringing together text, found and redesignated objects, sound, electronics and algorithms. The title suggests a rule, regime, or territory governed by erratic or random choices (from Lat. alea, the dice). As we are two human collaborators that often work asynchronously, and see what happens when heterogeneous elements collide, the installation features two small robotic arms that similarly engage in an asynchronous activity, becoming a sort of oracle connected by the impacting sound of ceramic pieces dropped into a metal dispenser.

Kontakt (simultan)

since June 2021

Hanns Holger Rutz

An open-ended project about making contact with surfaces and organisms, taking the form of a hybrid textual-visual piece between online presence and physical installation. Both connect to an experimental observation process permanently taking place inside the studio space of Reagenz. Here, a glass plate with collected lichen fragments is irrigated and photographed four times a day, perhaps producing an extremely slow growth, that is revealed as a time series of the photographs. The recordings began in April 2021, and continue since.

A physical installation of the piece is shown on the shop window of Reagenz. Through a stereoscopic view, the extremely (infinitely?) slow growth process can be observed, visible daily from 14:00–21:00h. The most recent photography is superimposed with the state a month ago, and augmented by text annotations.

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/1154218/1294325

Writing (simultan)

Aug–Oct 2020

Hanns Holger Rutz

Writing (simultan) is a sound installation that looks at the pure productivity, the intrinsic motion of an automated writing process, a process in which computers endlessly rewrite sonic gestures based on an already available “stream” of sound, such as radio broadcast. This stream is deconstructed by focusing solely at the acoustic self-similarity of the sounds, demoting semantic information to the background, and bringing the act of connection, drift and simultaneity to the foreground, as well as the material quality of projecting the sound onto physical objects (Petri dishes).

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/665526/665527/

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/665526/1013844

Transduction

Aug–Oct 2020

Daniele Pozzi

Transduction is a generative, site specific sound installation conceived for the facade of the space for artistic experiments Reagenz in Graz. The work is installed in a small window niche next to the entrance door and connects a physical setup – consisting of three thin glass surfaces, one pick-up microphone and two transducers – with a sound synthesis program. The transducers excite the glass, creating two oscillating membranes that project sound outside, and simultaneously the microphone feeds vibrations back into the software to initiate sound processes.

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/973643/973644

Algorithmic Segments

Apr–Oct 2020

Hanns Holger Rutz and David Pirrò

“Algorithmic segments” brought together a range of similarly themed events and Graz-based initiatives in order to contribute to a critical, aesthetic scrutiny of new digital technologies. In summer and autumn 2020, the project featured installations, exhibitions and interventions at spaces and interstitial spaces in the inner city – connected by virtual pathways.

This project is a cooperation of the Institute of Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) at the University of Music and Performing Arts, esc medien kunst labor, Grazer Kunstverein, Forum Stadtpark, Kunsthaus Graz, and Reagenz – Space for Artistic Experiments.

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/656665/656666

https://www.kulturjahr2020.at/projekte/algorithmische-segmente/

Meanderings

Jan–Oct 2018

Nayarí Castillo, Reni Hofmüller, Miriam Raggam, Hanns Holger Rutz

Acoustical surveys of the city. An experimental radio piece.

The spatial design of a city seems to dictate who moves around in it and how. Mäanderungen (“meanderings”) is an acoustic suggestion for developing alternative forms—in real, physical space; in electronic, radiophonic space; and in the imagination. Meanders are created by friction, by the sensing of irregularities, between depth and surface, in motion. The exploratory process developed by the temporary production collective corresponds to a form of walking, being and moving in the city that arises in the here and now, free from purpose, and that is individual, subjective, and inquiring. Peculiar views of the urban space are made possible—unusual, temporary units of measurement introduced. Part of the material created is based upon an interpretation of different spatial realities such as facades or gaps. They are photographed, drawn, captured by sensors or pressure and combined with text fragments to create a composition that manifests both as a radio drama and in the form of a spatial installation. The translation process is driven mainly by an algorithmic generator that is constantly allowing new coincidences.

Mäanderungen was the winning project of the lime_lab 3 prize for experimental radio play. lime_lab is a cooperation of Akademie Graz, Forum Stadtpark, Literaturhaus Graz, ORF Steiermark, and steirischer herbst.

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/388082/388083

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/388082/510646

swarming + networking

Mar–Sep 2017

Nayarí Castillo, Gertrude Grossegger, Hanns Holger Rutz

“schwärmen + vernetzen” (swarming and networking) explores the possibilities of transdisciplinary work in art, realising them through forms of “movement profiles”, retracing the vacating of individual viewpoints of the participating artists and the emergence of joint forms of movement. The project is a collaboration between writer Gertrude Grossegger, installation arts and trained molecular biologist Nayarí Castillo, and sound artist Hanns Holger Rutz. In order to make novel connections between text, visual elements and sounds possible, the three artists put themselves into an experimental arrangement, topically structured around dynamical systems of swarming and networking, originating from biology; we are interested in systems in which new organisms develop without dissolving their partial structures, individual media, and individual scopes of work. Stages of the project are a series of encounters of the artists, the outcome of each of which is a further development of materials, an intensive retreat over several days, a publication in a literature journal, an exhibition at Akademie Graz, a symposium, and a printed catalog.

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/361990/361991

https://www.researchcatalogue.net/view/361990/385848