Jan Kounen | Robert Lippok & Lucas Gutierrez | David OReilly | Thomas Wilfred

Jan Kounen: Ayahuasca – A Kosmik Journey

“Ayahuasca – A Kosmik Journey” is the attempt to transfer experiences based on the physical and hallucinatory effects of ayahuasca, a natural remedy used by the indigenous peoples of the Amazon region, into the medium of 360°-film. Director Jan Kounen explores the questions of whether an immersive technology can simulate psychedelic experiences resembling those made under the influence of ayahuasca and whether this media experience changes our sense of reality. After all, immersive technologies like the fulldome format place the audience in the midst of fictitious narrative spaces, ensuring that they not merely look at a dream, but rather seem to be inside it for a few moments.

Robert Lippok & Lucas Gutierrez: Non-face

Non-manifold geometries describe “fake-objects” – items that may look realistic, but can in fact not exist in the physical world. They develop their sensual plausibility in the digital world. One famous example is the Penrose-triangle: Its three beams appear to be positioned at right angles to each other, and yet they are connected to form a triangle. In 3D-animation, such objects regularly surface through so-called mesh-mistakes. For their first joint Fulldome-piece, sound artist Robert Lippok and digital artist Lucas Gutierrez have identified these frequently occurring mistakes in their own artistic practice and develop data structures to explore these fantastic objects. Their work produces different dimensionalities and creates new topological relations. This might not determine the inside or the outside of these impossible objects, but it will render the sonic and visual boundaries of a three-dimensional space tangible. To this end, the composition uses simulated reflections in physical and virtual spaces. Various methods of traditional instrument building are used to transcribe the virtual geometries into musical patterns which, in turn, weave sequences of notes and real-time emulations of different sound sources into multi-layered textures.

David OReilly: The End of Stories

“The End of Stories” is a collage of 37 perspectives of people from around the world coping with the turbulence of pandemic life. The anonymous callers express their personal thoughts and feelings, sharing an inability to imagine the future. Each perspective is represented visually with cascades of choreographed space-debris, animated primarily by the voice of each speaker. “The End of Stories” ties in with David OReilly’s “Corona Voicemails” trilogy and expands it into an immersive fulldome experience.

Thomas Wilfred: Home Luminar #52 (1928)

With his lumia instruments that created compositions from electrical, mechanical and reflective elements, the American light artist Thomas Wilfred (1889-1968) created a new art form at the crossroads between technology and modern art. The light paintings he composed – meditative, northern lights-like colour symphonies –, and which he presented quietly without musical accompaniment, earned him a place in the Museum of Modern Art, New York as part of the exhibition “15 Americans” in 1952 together with Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko.

In collaboration with the Epstein Collection and Stiftung Planetarium Berlin, four of his works that were originally presented as screen and ceiling projections have been re-filmed and adapted for the first time for the largest visual space of our age, allowing them to be experienced in a new way. His symphonies will be presented in silence.