Planetary Skins

Planetary Skins engages with the materiality of the real and the digital. Configuring an osmotic skin between virtual and physical spaces, Planetary Skins explores the potentials, ambivalences, and conflicts induced by hybrid forms of presence. The virtual is not the representation of an artificial 3D world but acts as a membrane to connect actual places and people across three continents. Via projections, virtual reality, and streaming technologies (Anna Pompermaier, Cenk Güzelis), remote contributors from Denver (Thomas Nail), Frankfurt (Christ Mukenge), Kinshasa (Marian Kaiser), London (Johnny Golding), Los Angeles (Tanja Traxler) and Rotterdam (Vera Bühlmann) join the participants at the gallery in Innsbruck (Thomas Feuerstein, Carmen Lael Hines, Barbara Imhof), who in turn also become part of the virtual membrane via Kinect cameras. Performance (Martha Laschkolnig, Markus Passecker), vocals (Wientaler Dreigesang), sound (Volkmar Klien), and artworks (Sylvia Eckermann and Gerald Nestler, Thomas Feuerstein, Manu Luksch, Mukenge/Schellhammer) are integrated in the discursive performative happening both in the physical and the virtual space. Additionally, the livestream connects the different spaces into a multi-layered online event.
A post-disciplinary prototype for probing into the matter of emerging ideas, materials, and synergies, the art project unfolds an arena that brings together performance, conversation, installation, soundscape, and film set. In an era increasingly fragmented and amalgamated by global digital platforms, Planetary Skins exists as a laboratory to imagine new forms of ecologically, socially, and artistically engaged collective practice.