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Ruth Schnell
Babel | 1993-96
Floor projection of anamorphotic distorted video sequences from TV reports on refugees from Ruanda as well as from a picture detail from Brueghels painting ‘Tower of Babel’.
The observers stand and walk within the distorted picture field, they can see the rectified pictures in the mirror cylinder which are superimposed by their own distorted mirror images. The flexuous endless mirror builds a space of its own and it seems that the pictures rotate around the cylinder.Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Body Scanned Architecture | 1995
Interactive computer installation, Austrian Pavilion, Venice Biennale
Opaque acrylic glass pane, live camera, video projector, mirror, Silicon Graphics Onyx computer, Silicon Graphics Extreme 2Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Der andere Beobachter | 1991-92
‘The other observer’
video installation, 5 piece projection screen, computer, rotation motorPrimary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
facades | 2016
facades is an audiovisual animation, conceived for performance in a Fulldome. Fulldomes are immersive, dome-based projection environments which allow the full and multimodal integration of the viewers in a multi-sensory, potentially interactive experiential space as an interface.
For facades Ruth Schnell has designed a dramaturgy of resolution and reconstruction. The “organic” attractive facades and streetscapes appear elastic; open spaces overlay each other, panoramas may emerge. The viewer can move virtually in a horizontal fashion or into the depth of the configuration. The individual motion of the projected content simulates both spatial dynamics as well as a first-person perspective.
The accompanying sound is based on the 1986 recording of the text “No Such Agency”, published by media theorist Friedrich Kittler about the NSA.
The image content is open at the top and bottom; spatial engagement occurs without “heaven” and “earth”. The presented immersive experience is also an experience of instability.
The imagery of facades has its starting point – developed using a photogrammetric method – in 3D models of city buildings. Here, through several calculations and various software programs, 3D information on an object is derived from only two-dimensional images. The 3D models, generated from scatter diagrams and combined with a 3D graphics program to form streetscapes, allow changes in perspective and various simulated movements.
facades was originally developed for dome projection in Montreal’s Satosphère, a Fulldome 18 meters in diameter with a 360-degree expansion of the image on the horizon and 210 degrees at the zenith.
(Text: Patricia Köstring)Concept and idea: Ruth Schnell
Artistic direction: Ruth Schnell
Media content and animation: Nikola Tasic
Media setup: Martin Kusch, Johannes Hucek
Sound: Alexandre St-Onge, Marie-Claude PoulinPrimary cross-sensory modalities: VISION, AUDIO, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Floating Signs ‘SEE’ | 2011
Permanent light installation, Bregenz harbour, A
Luminescence bar, 200 cm, w/ 1024 super light white LEDs, acrylic glass cylinder, stainless steel stele 450 cm, sensors, micro processors, external control processorPrimary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINAESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Lichtbild | 2011
The ‘Light Image’ series is dedicated to the validity of the organization of the gaze as well as to the changing of temporal dimensions of image perception and generation. The artworks use the ‘after image’ phenomenon as a base to link the ‘real’ environment with a dynamic, virtual space of signs.
The series’ works consist of MDFs which are covered with several translucent epoxy resin layers — shining, monochrome panels. Vertical bars each consisting of 32 LEDs are integrated into these picture carriers. These red, white or blue LED bars which first can be identified as compositorial elements generate words which are fragmented into light pixels.
The newly generated rows of words (each appr. 100 terms) refer to various fields of meaning and possible associations are condensed by means of sequence and rhythmicity. Topics are amongst others perception patterns, time, crises, work, gender.
Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Loudness & Silence | 2008
Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
MotU #4 — #6 | 2011/2016
The work Motu #4 – #6 from the series Mirrors of the Unseen, challenges the supposed credibility of the visible. The habitual process of seeing is interrupted by words and icons made of light; they seem to emerge from three flickering LED beams and float hologram-like in front of the space. Nothing can get in the way of translucent (written) images. They are present, and yet at the same time do not exist: Only individual perception makes them accessible to the viewer.
The light rod installations make use of the inertia of the human eye: The photoreceptors of the retina cannot resolve separate frames at a rate of more than about 20 frames per second. This is the reason why we see film as film, why the annular motion of a flashlight in the dark appears to describe a closed circle of light. For the display on the light rods, words, icons and also schematic photographic images are broken down into points that are successively shown on the vertical columns of the rod.
In MotU, the viewer is particularly involved in the creation of the work. The icons and images on the rods alternate at a certain frequency. The afterimage is distorted in direct relation to the individual’s perspective into the room. There is no collective viewing of the work; what is seen is an individual experience rather than something tangible or verifiable.
Accordingly, the works tie the fabric of the thematic representation together. The words and icons projected onto the rods for MotU #4 – #6 include concepts from the field of synesthesia which are associatively condensed through sequencing and rhythmization.
(Text: Patricia Köstring/Ruth Schnell)Concept and idea: Ruth Schnell
Artistic direction: Ruth Schnell
Media content: Ruth Schnell, Lea Schnell, Patricia Köstring
Programming and media setup: Stefan Istvanits, Alexander PauschCommissioned by DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA
Primary cross-sensory modalities: VISION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Retinal Mission | 2005-06
LED installation, Berlin
Primary sensory cross-modalities: VISION, PROPRIOCEPTION, KINESTHETICS
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Ruth Schnell
Topography of Movement | 2016
For her dynamic image projections, Ruth Schnell works mostly with computerized projection mirrors. The image content itself is optional, and therefore projected without a background. It is repeatedly in motion: In Topography of Movement projected hands perform an activity. The sequence in turn is made dynamic, accelerated or contradicted via the movements of the projection mirror, depending on how the two movement patterns come together.
The multiple projection (a right and a left hand), the scaling of projected events, as well as the implied tilt of the camera angle from supervision in a side view override conventions of spatial order. If the left or right hand point to an absent body, a subjective viewer perspective is made impossible by the high magnification of the image content. The scaling changes the spatial reference system.
The hearing of the original sounds is simultaneous to the individual motion of the image that arose during the recording: Wiping, knocking, typing sounds. In addition, the sound contributes to the spatialization of the image content.
(Text: Patricia Köstring/Ruth Schnell)Concept and idea: Ruth Schnell
Assistance: Patricia Köstring
Artistic direction: Ruth Schnell
Media Content: Ruth Schnell, Patricia Köstring
Postproduction sound: Alexandre St-Onge
Camera: Azalea Ortega, Nikita Zhukovskiy
Performer: Marie-claude Poulin, Nikita ZhukovskiyCommissioned by DIGITAL SYNESTHESIA
Primary cross-sensory modalities: VISION, AUDIO, KINESTHETICS