Dear interested colleagues,

Here you will find the project description and specific links to the participating artists

1. the ontology project is an impulse to reposition the subject (which is why we start the project with the theory of evolution and a 'Panoptes' video) and should lead to a more respectful approach to nature. We present the project as a Gesamtkunstwerk - a fabric that is perceived by visitors as haptic-sensual and poetic-conceptual parcours.
The presentation is characterized by a very subtle range of works, where touching fingers, laughing eyes and calm, thoughtful faces enjoy the passages of the project, and only after they have left the project starts the significance giving, or memorizing another word for movement, gates open to constant flux...

2. flux I bell sTRUcTURs e.V. Berlin will invest into the project € 23,500 plus provide organizational assistance and foreign applications. If the project is realized in Germany and in another European country, the association will increase its support to €30,000 on condition that (if necessary) additional international applications are made.
Here too, the Association will be helpful, read: active.

3. what is offered: a symposium, weekly activities, publication after the project

4. spacial format: we will adapt to the space available. An ideal format for the realization is about 600 m2. If the 600 m2 are not available, there are good reasons to realise the project in a "model format". 
Here are two options:

• Model format 1: 210 square meters would be ideal. The 4 project zones float into the space on head/body height. Visitors walk through the presentation, separated from the real architectural space, they connect with this quiet, poetic-conceptual environment, characterized by strong haptic qualities.
  

• Model format 2: If the available space is around 250 - 300 m2, we would still only build a model project of around 200 m2. We want to create space to involve the visitors in the project, they should (subconsciously) touch & feel the outer walls of the floating model format. The floating model intervenes, marks, draws boundaries. As we think in terms of connections, and not in terms of boundaries and borders: we want to include the visitors' touches by means of almost invisible sensors. They have not yet been inside the project, they do not know what is to be seen and felt, they influence the inner tissue just by touching it.

After the text that follows, here are some sketches of initial ideas for the curatorial narrative

Intro to ON ONTOLOGY

At the beginning of the project, we refer to the theory of evolution, the savannah, the vastness and the light, geology, human time begins! In the next part we visualize the weight of cultural organization, the pressure and distribution of knowledge (and order), all of which leave heavy ‘footprints’. Being, stroking movements, on, logo; here the non-erosion of the digital is supported! On the way to the dry planet, we are accompanied by (almost invisible) digital moisture meters, sensors & mini-cameras, they count, calculate what is happening - time is ticking - to end the tour with the image of a future ‘biologically dead’ earth.

The ONTOLOGY PROJECT combines the classical ontological subject (with its ideas and actions of freedom, empathy and contingency) with the ontological world of data, meaning the embedding in a computing system that quickly creates order. The project is open, unfinished on all levels, a fabric floating in space that revolves around the sub-themes: erzählen – zählen (narrating – counting), entspannen – anspannen (relaxation - tension), Freiraum – Raum (space – place), empathy - virtual footprints, contingency- calculability, merging, all together! 

What are the prerequisites for artists to support being in flux? To navigate the transition from being to ‘being in flux’, better ‘assidue fluxus’ as open being? Recognizing Latour’s ANT- theory and Haraway’s cyborg thinking* and acting accordingly is the foundation of this project. The Ontology project presents how open thoughts and sensibilities explore and decouple our ways of living and seeing from the binary terminologies and dissolve them. It is the search of how the subject nests itself in both ontologies, connects and merges them, while at the same time recognizing how data ontology forces us to completely rethink the classical forms of freedom, contingency and empathy.

*We see ourselves as a small particle in a big chain: gases, planet earth, nature, animals and a humanity that crushes everything with its weight.

The project unfolds in four zones:

Zone 1: Evolutionarily, the human animal gazes into the distance. In front of them stretches an almost untouched, dry savannah. Do we need a panoptic view of this vastness … and protection!

Zone 2: The brain ticks faster, language becomes the connecting element. How do we optimize mutual understanding and sensitization? Subtle, poetic, sensual offerings encourage pause and concentration. The light-touch, yet difficult-to-decipher flow of words (cultural production) leaves deep footprints (traces)!

Zone 3: The traditional ways of disseminating information (print), materialized, by “yesterday’s news”, are giving way to a digital flow of information through (image-noise-vibration) sensing, making the weight of “digital footprints” that are burdening the planet tangible.

Zone 4: The final part of the project consists of a dry, cracked - sculptural - floor, the works shown here are subtle reflections on melting processes, pollution and global warming. On display; some video still life, a fine small duo of paintings, parallel sensors measure the spatial activity (connection earth, sand, salt, humidity, person). All works are characterized by a minimalist aesthetic.
After the project tour, the recorded data (in tablets) are visible.

links and information about the participating artists:

Zone 1   Savannah ( sandfloor)  Evolution knowledge as reference. Human-Animal bows to Light

1 - Sophia Berg, GE, Berlin. Will produce a large minimalist drawing  and we expect to show her brown/reddish sand painting. Evolutiontheory based works [webpage link]

2 - Sara Rajaei, IR, Rotterdam. [webpage link] Video-Projection 1: Story;  “Panoptes” remembers his life. The visualization perspective: looking from a shore-, moutainside towards the ocean, (sometimes) covered with clouds. Filming with a minimum of changes in camera perspective. Production: Norway.  [Panoptes link]

Videowork 2: a small scale projection from dry different dry plants in the desert (also with a minimum of changes in camera perspectives). Edit: Autumn 2025.  Her work “City of Poets”  was selected for Berlinale 24. [City of Poets link] - [webpage link]

3 - Michael(a) Daoud EGY/Berlin. ..bridging from Savannah to structural zone, … dragging across the sand.
Unravelling the knots of a boatform  which are connected with a Head (caught in a knotted net) [webpage link] - [artist profile]

4 - Albrecht Schnider, CH. After leaving as young men his hometown, which had views of a lake and mountains, Albrecht Schnider painted a series of small abstract mountain landscapes, using here imagination and memory.
One of these older paintings (1988) will be on show in Zone 1.  [work link]

Zone 2  Humans organizing structure ( collective installation) where we start !  From Paradise,… by discovering Bookprint …distribution & accumulation of knowledge and on plurality in (constructed) nature

5 - Stephan Groß, GE-Berlin; "IFIFIFIFIFIFIF" and its connotations (menkind & programme counts) (a poetic, very  abstract, geometric, not readable wall work) [webpage link] Stephan’s work mirrors in Kyoco branches and Mina Mohensi Farsi-Hand (text below). 

6 - Inti Gallardo ARG, “Der Anfang am Ende der Welt” is a video-dual channel presentation. The artist explores the interconnection and fragility of our planet through images captured in Tierra del Fuego and Easter Island. The work begins with the serene presence of lichens on rocks—organisms that exemplify symbiosis and resilience in nature—creating a parallel with the adaptability and cooperation that still persist in our environment.. editing: after the travel period, Autumn 2025. [webpage link]

7 - Kyoco Taniyama JP, a long horizontal hanging - free flowing -, dry tree-branches composition (without leaves). The composition; natural branches from different trees, at first sight it looks like a horizontal natural tree, a branches tissue, ... in contrast this "flowing" form lives from its plurality. [webpage link] See selected works for Ex “Hearing each other 2024” 

 

8- Mina Mohensi IR, large scale slow- video projections (parallel up with Kyoco´s tree branches, mirroring in Stephan´s large scale nonreadable-abstract IFIF). Her projection shows slow hand-movement, with in front of these Farsi letters. The hand movement and Farsi say: “Where to move to, where to move to” repeating these abstract Farsi presentation several times. (connecting at the end with Stephan; … touching each other). [webpage link]  Specific (are-edited slower  version, articulation on hand-movements  & letters), work in relation to other works on view):

[work link]

Zone 3 on information and sensoring

9 - Bob Gramsa NL/Swiss.  „news from yesterday” (a daily new newspaper-landscape installation, on top 3 car-doors, inside:  cars with sitting place; …a Bunker work, living in the past, protecting for the future) From a world of paper information distribution (in this case, bunker protection) to a world of digital sensing. Heavy Footprints from the past , but the future  “lightweight” information is fucking heavy, too!  these one leaf enormous Footprints,  supports eroding even more. [webpage link] - [work link]

10 - Mindaugas Gapševičius, LIT. anticipates the environment. There are sensors in all the sculptural glass forms, in some forms water with algae, sand, salt, dry earth. Sensors (with mini cameras) distributed throughout the project, after the project tour you can see the measured vibrations on tablets. In the link you find: Love Letters to My Fellow Human, in these you find then: Artificial Jellyfish, I Am an Aquatic Ecosystem and The Pond. [work link]

End Zone 3 bridging  Zone 4

11- Kirill Agafonov, RUS, Zürich. Micro-territory research & our bodies; on real & virtual footprints [work link]

Zone 4 An enormous hard Savannah, read; a dry cracked soil floor (one that  no longer absorbs water)

12 - Channa Boon, NL, will examine her video footage of the Bolivian salt flat "Salar de Uyuni" located at 3,600 meters, to edit a new version. The same applies to the Aral Sea (Kazakhstan), the fourth largest inland lake in the world, which, thanks to human intervention!  has transformed into a completely dry (salt) desert in less than 80 years. Wikipedia names this as; a biologically dead Zone. [webpage link] Collaborative work: “From their planet”: Channa Boon, Sara Rajaei, Antonella Kurzen [work link]

13  Takashi Arai, JP. anchored on the ocean in front of the destroyed, afterburning Fukishima nuclear reactor shoots Takashi pictures from these “form” a by “Human Knowledge created Stilllife“ . In the exhibit a small sculptural water dripping glass-bowl & tub, dripping if necessary water, connected with a humidity counter (this work is  right yet not part of the artist-homepage) [webpage link]

- Albrecht Schnider (Zone 1 & Zone 4) In leaves, branches, landscapes and portraits, he pushes the search for perfect - breathing - minimalist forms, and reduces the intensity of primary colors; the weight is determined by light tones. This, coupled with the minimalist aesthetic, makes the cultural change tangible to the senses.  Two new small new abstract landscape paintings (2025) can be seen here. [work link]

- Sara Rajaei (Zone 1 & 4) edits a short (small size) video projection on dry earth, video: almost no movement. Here image: the desert with small transparent plastic bags… waiting for wind., for movement! [webpage link]

Public-space activities

14/15 Andrea Palasti/Daniel Popivic SER. Berlin.  They offer monthly 2 meander activities, working in natural zones. Starting often at midnight.  Working in absolute quietness. Other option (daytime work)  refreshing earth & stimulating reptile grow. [webpage link]

16/17 Robert Hamelijnck NL and Bernd Trasberger DE- Berlin Using the Environment to research the merging of classical Being, merging with Data Ontology this “on all its levels”  playful .Offering monthly 2 or 3 activities in the Artspace. Robert [webpage link] - Bernd [webpage link] 

Symposium: to be announced