Christian Keinstar
„untitled”, 2008
installation, ISO-container, steel, electronics
Sounddesign: Christian Keinstar & Robert Babicz; Container Sponsoring: Schenker Deutschland AG
A loudspeaker box raises and lowers itself, according to precisely defines phases, into and out of a vertically positioned container. A synthetic computer voice incessantly recites fragments from Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Tractatus, his text on the philosophy of language. The raising and lowering of the loudspeaker shapes the voice’s sound. Thus the precisely controlled intonation is not the result of an individual personality, but of a spatial modulation, the sound design of language. The automated speech sounds transform the content into an acoustic carrier wave, yet the meaning is condensed, expanded, and shifted. The container becomes an echo chamber that reflects and distorts speech acts beyond recognition. A delusional moment of the implosion of the rulebook is hinted at, where Wittgenstein’s linguistic philosophy collides with our own experience, a blank space of language.
Sonja Hempel
Vita
| 1975 | Born in Dirschau, Poland |
| 1989 | Moved to Germany |
| 1998 | Academy of Applied Sciences - Visual Communication, Aachen |
| 2003 | Academy of Fine Arts, Munich |
| 2005 | Academy for Media Arts Cologne (KHM), diploma with distinction |
Grants
| 2002 | German National Academic Foundation Scholarship |
| 2005 | Sony Wega Motion Art Artist |
| 2005 | Spiridon Neven DuMont Award |
| 2006 | Art Cologne New Talents |
| 2007 | kunst:raum Sylt Quelle Residency |
| 2008 | Villa Aurora Residency, Los Angeles, CA |
| 2008 | T-Mobile Austria Art Studio, Vienna |
Exhibitions (Selection)
| 2008 | „Cover Me”, Lukas Feichtner Gallery Vienna, Austria. (S/Kat.) „Sinewave Warsaw”, Program Art Gallery Warsaw, Poland. (S) |
| 2007 | „For Repressors”, livingroom Cologne. (S) |
| 2006 | New Talents, Art Cologne 2006. (S/Kat) „Echo” – Neue Medien Alte Meister - Spiridon Neven DuMont Grants, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corbound, Cologne. (G/Kat.) „Smells Like Cologne” Zolla / Lieberman Gallery Chicago, USA. (G) „Fuel For Hatred”, Lukas Feichtner Gallery Vienna, Austria. (S/Kat.) |
| 2005 | „The ABC„, semiotics of resistance, Neurotitan Gallery, Berlin. (G) „Hang”, Artcore Gallery Toronto, Canada. (G) „24h”, Verein für Orginal Radierung, Munich. (G) |
| 2004 | „This Is Trance”, Gallery -Projektraum, Cologne. (S) „Geometrie des Versagens”, Club der Polnischen Versager, Berlin. (G/Kat.) „Drunk Sculptures”, Rheinschau Art Cologne Projects, Cologne. (G/Kat.) |
| 2002 | „Artfighter”, Live Performance. Arcart - Art on the Edge Symposium, Kunstforening Tromsö, Norway. (G) „Viva La Muerte!”, Break 21-Dead or Live, 6th International Festival of Young Emerging Artists Ljubljana, Slovenia. (G) |