A round convex object hung in a darkened room onto which exact circular images flicker via a masked projection is the setting of the work by Keyvan Paydar (Graz) and Amir Mokhber (Tehran). The images are computer-programmed and are sometimes reminiscent of landscapes or kaleidoscopically changing patterns, then again of microscopically enlarged cell surfaces. In the midst of them moves a human being - the viewer of this scenery, who vice versa himself becomes visible on this surface filmed by a special camera. By means of his movement, he can change the scenery and, in doing so, looks at himself as if in a mirror. Apparently controlling the events, the human being is ultimately a puppet in this game, because his movement can be determined anticipatively in a following algorithm - intransparently influencing what is to be seen. To be in the eye of the beholder means to be at the mercy of the control of artificial intelligence.

Sound design by Nick Acorne

​Text by Andrea Sadjak 

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For a long time, the digital world was considered inhospitable, lonely and cold, with everything human between 0s and 1s erased. And this fear was and is not entirely unfounded: While we have dissolved all private barriers and are "now live" with every decision, while marketing departments of international corporations know us down to our underwear habits, the distance of the individual from the community, from a collective, seems to have exploded. If the counterpart is no longer tangible, solidarity can be exchanged lightly for shopping fun, actual support without scratching one's self-image for a like. 

But it is not only since our new pandemic of overshadowed normality that it has become clear what cyberspace masterminds prophetically anticipated decades ago: The digital offers us almost infinite possibilities, as human beings, as mortal, transient bodies, as cooperative beings, as artists!nnen. The exhibition "Digitales Brennen" of the Freies Atelierhaus Schaumbad explores exactly those chances and possibilities, tells about overcoming spatial and physical limitations and believes in the pulsating, creative life, in creating and cooperating in the digital, without losing sight of the dangers and limitations of this "second world". It's allowed to get hot.

​Text von Elke Murlasits