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until 19.10. | #4374ARTatBerlin | BBA Gallery Shows from 06. September 2024 the Group exhibition Echoes of tomorrow. yes, today! by the artists Verena Bachl, Rhys Himsworth, Chirag Jindal, Sven Windszus and WHYIXD .
The exhibition “echoes of tomorrow. yes today!” reflects upon the rapid changes in the latest technological developments and the continuously evolving media landscape, highlighting how we are often in pursuit of the newest trends. This pursuit sometimes leads to dressing up these trends in new forms and labelling them as “art,” while often forgetting the deeper, fundamental questions about the art presented in galleries—its purpose and existence. Following what’s currently popular has little to do with the essence of contemporary art.
Many artists are curious about new technologies and media, experimenting with them to achieve creative outcomes. However, the challenge lies in creating something sustainable that goes beyond mere conceptualisation or the thrill of technology. Art is also judged by its ability to endure beyond the short lifespan of a particular hype.
The artists showcased in the BBA Gallery Berlin resist these “trends” by questioning our relationship with ourselves and nature. Imagination and memory are fundamental aspects of human perception, cognition and language which are influenced by technology and media.
Media and technology are used to blur boundaries, bend genres, document the invisible, and push art into unexplored territories. In this process, imagination and memory influence and intertwine with one another. Perception is only a small part of what we see, seeing consists of memories to which imagination projects meaning to. Seeing is not only the act of witnessing but the act of taking part.
The artists in this group exhibition utilise both collective and personal memory to stimulate imagination. When repeatedly called upon, imagination can serve as a vivid or distorted memory, crystallise into a personal myth, or introduce new perspectives into our collective thinking. These artists skillfully navigate the high-speed transformations in the media landscape and use technological tools with ambition and precision. Their work slows down our attention-driven economy and society, challenging the ever-emerging new systems by standing still and testing the rhythm of time.
Verena Bachl
● Germancitizen, lives and works in Berlin
● Nominated for the shortlist of the BBA Artist Prize 2023
Aesthetica Art Prize Nominiert | Ars Electronica Art
Verena Bachl, Everthing Will Be Fine / Alles wird gut, Installation
The installation Everything Will Be Fine is dedicated to the preservation of the past and the transience of our biodiversity. It presents a radical yet probable depiction of mass extinction, which often goes largely unnoticed or ignored. The artwork consists of 500 naturally deceased insects that have been preserved and plated in gold to reflect their true value within a functioning ecosystem. The aesthetics are undeniable, we are dazzled by their beautiful appearance, however, hidden beneath the layer of gold is the evidence of what humans are willing to sacrifice for the sake of their existence. Memory and proof of existence, as well as genetic code, are encased in these golden tombs, now impervious to the ravages of time.
The still life merges memory and fantasy with a minimalist depiction of antidepressant pills arranged like a calendar, emphasizing the monotonous routine of chronic illness. Hidden symbols and words, visible only when the light hits them at the right angle, reveal messages about light.
Still Life reflects the artist’s experience with mental illness during the Covid-19 lockdown, transforming a sterile routine into a metaphor for resilience and hope and inviting the viewer to discover a deeper meaning. Bachl constructs worlds around the concepts of memory and imagination, weaving narratives that explore the complexities of where myth begins and memory falters. In between lies the enigmatic nature of uncertainty.
Her work highlights pressing contemporary issues and challenges stereotypes by creating a speculative scenography that immerses the viewer in a synthetic atmosphere reminiscent of natural counterparts.
“By deliberately blurring the line between reality and fantasy, my work invites us to question our perception of reality and reveals multiple perspectives and layers of existence,” says Verena Bachl.
Rhys Himsworth
● Welshartist wholives and works in Berlin
● Represented artist. Last solo exhibition at BBA Gallery 2022
2023/ 20 Wales Arts International Award
VCUPresidential Research Quest Award
Conran Foundation Award
Land Securities Prize
R.K. Burt Prize
Runner Up Deutsche Bank Award
Rhys Himsworth, “Hyperaccumulator 04”
This work consists of three different groups, all of which relate to the concepts of memoryandimagination from the perspective of landscape. These pieces explore how cultural, historical, and geopolitical memory is embedded in technological materials. The works aim to unearth memory by metaphorically uniting their materials with the land from which they originate. This creates a discourse around the often invisible and cumbersome routes of global trade. The central themes are communication, consumption, and the extraction of raw materials.
The selected materials consist of electronic waste and fossil fuels, which in recent history symbolised dreams of utopian futures. The idea that imagination can bring about positive change now appears, at best, as a distant memory. In this sense, the work plays with logic, imagination, and memory, which all revolve around each other. This is fittingly connected to concepts like time, which are being reconfigured in online cultures, as linear timelines are being reconstituted.
The first work depicts flora on the edge of global mineral mines. The images are created on abedofcrushed LCDscreens containing minerals that give the work a dark color palette. The shimmering and pearlescent quality of the work comes from crushed quartz glass, once part of the screens of cell phones, tablets, and computers.
The work thus contains the memory of its original existence, shaped by the idea of a technological utopia. The material exposes the raw minerals from which it is made, referring to the memory of a place and a journey. Despite this, like a return to a place that existed in another time, the material is never the same again. It has been altered by the consumption of consumer electronics, which once fueled the imagination of users and creators.
In Monoliths (working title), the artist plans to create a series of hybrid paintings. These paintings will use images from desktops, tablet backgrounds, and screensavers to create works in 2.5 dimensions, made with specially developed hybrid materials derived from electronic waste.
In the creation of these works, a substrate of layers of e-waste is developed, forming a hybrid composite that contains the memory of landscapes, suggests geological time, and stands in stark contrast to the hyper-speed of technological time. Borrowing from topological representations commonly associated with geology and data, they apply the scientific notion of memory as something empirical, while their abstraction suggests places embedded in the entanglement of layered memories and imaginations, where empirical truths take a back seat. Consequently, they exist in a paradoxical realm that feeds the memory of the imagination and vice versa.
The third work comprises of a typological series of monochrome glacial forms printed on coal dust from the Arctic bedrock. The images were taken as part of the Arctic Circle Residency Expedition. The Arctic landscape, continuously eroding and largely exploited by technological development, exists mostly in the imagination due to its remoteness. Its erosion through technological progress means it will soon be nothing more than a memory. The work acts as a memento mori for a place of imagination and memory
Chirag Jindal
● NewZealandartist, lives and works in Auckland
● 1stprize winner of the BBA Photography Prize 2019
● Represented artist. Last solo exhibition at BBA Gallery 2021
● WinnerUnder30sAward,Royal Photographic Society | London UK
Runner Up Majaoja Prize | Tampere FINLAND
Winner RT Nelson Emerging Artist Award | Wellington NZ
Winner Interphoto Grand Prix | Bialystok POLAND
Winner BBA Photography Prize | Berlin GER
Winner LAB 13 Art Prize | Rome IT
Winner Schauerman Digital Art Prize | London UK
Finalist Bird in Flight Prize | Kyiv UKRAINE
Finalist Aesthetica Art Prize | London UK
Finalist Meitar Award | Tel Aviv ISRAEL
Finalist Arte Laguna Prize | Venice ITALY
Chirag Jindal, Ambury Road
Into the Underworld / Ngā Mahi Rarowhenua is an ongoing series (2018-2021) produced using LiDAR, an emerging method of lens-based imaging used in archaeological surveys and forensics. This instrument, which uses light as its medium, registers its surroundings through millions of precisely measured points and translates the world into a digital facsimile.
Color is mapped through a traditional photographic process, transferring the saturated hues of textures and surfaces to each individual data point. The technique is used to document the lava caves of Auckland—an unseen, decaying landscape ravaged by a century of rapid urban sprawl. The caves, which once housed urupā (burial sites) and war shelters, are considered wāhi tapu (sacred) by mana whenua (local Māori groups). Their existence is often regarded as an urban myth and is not widely known. Discovery of these caves are fewer as suburbs are becoming more populated. It is expected that by the end of the century, only a few of these caves will be known.
The role of photography in documenting, remembering, and projecting “truth” becomes prevalent here. With the help of scientific instruments, an attempt is made to objectify a landscape that has become an urban myth and has consequently decayed, existing largely in memory and imagination.
LiDAR’s 3D mapping capabilities allow it to investigate previously invisible dichotomous relationships: surface and subsurface, known and unknown, built environment and landscape. More importantly, LiDAR serves as a tool to index something once confined to the imagination and present it as evidence. Millions of points reconstruct the object as a digital facsimile, each point a product of the instrument’s precise, empirical observation. These points represent coordinates, a concentrated certainty of spatial fact.
Sven Windszus
● Germancitizen, lives and works in Berlin
● 1st prize winner of the BBA Artist Prize 2022
● Represented Gallery artist
● Last solo exhibition at BBA Gallery 2022
London Art Biennale, Award for Digital Work & Video | London UK
PRIX ARS ELECTRONICA | Linz AUSTRIA
Second Prize Winner YICCA international Contest of Contemporary Art | Milan ITALY
Sven Windszus, “Bewegungsapparat”
The theme of memory and imagination is central to Windszus’ works. He examines how history and interpretations shape our reality today, and how alternative narratives could lead to different outcomes. Windszus presents a radically different world—for example, envisioning what might have happened if a divine daughter had appeared in the Christian story instead of a son.
In doing so, he challenges traditional memories with new imaginative possibilities. The image of Mary with her finger to her lips hints at hidden truths and emphasizes the contrast between historical Christian teachings and modern views on the role of women.
Similarly, he explores the interaction between humans and machines to reflect on industrial progress, showing how our ideas of the future influence the tangible consequences of technological advancement.
Both works blur the boundaries between what one remembers and what one is willing to imagine. They emphasise the power of reinterpretation and creativity in shaping our understanding of the world.
WHYIXD
● Taiwanese artist collective who live and work in Taipei City
● Nominated for the shortlist of the BBA Artist Prize 2024
Italian A’ Design Award Platinum
German RedDot Design Award
Swiss LIT Lighting Design Award
UKdarc Award
Taiwan’s top 100 designs Nomination
WHYIXD, Heaven bloom 2
The collective known as WHYIXD explore memory and imagination by presenting the essence of nature in a dynamic dialogue with the viewer. Inspired by the resilient life of the mountains, the artwork symbolizes eternity as an evolving organic entity. Mimicking azaleas and drawing inspiration from mosaics and eternity knots, the pieces suggest eternal existence through interlocking geometric forms.
Mechanical flowers with hidden metal veins open and close, simulating the seasons and creating an elegant space-time continuum. This blend of mathematical precision and organic flow captivates the viewer, transforming the mechanical into a seemingly living being.
By merging memory andimagination, the Heaven Bloom series reflects the interplay between the natural world and human creativity beyond eternity. It invites the viewer to contemplate and consider the artwork in harmony with its surroundings.
Opening: Friday. 06. September, 6-9 pm.
Exhibition dates: Friday, 06. September, until Saturday, 19. October 2024
Finissage: Friday, 18. October 2024, 6-8 pm
To the Gallery
Title image caption: WHYIXD, ‘Heaven Bloom’, 2024. Installation
Group exhibition Echoes of Tomorrow. Yes, today! – BBA Gallery | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
