Space in a space with the traces of its own making

SPACE IN A SPACE WITH THE TRACES OF ITS OWN MAKING

In the work of Nikolaus Gansterer “Space in a Space with the Traces of its own Making (2017)”, the processes of thought, action and drawing are indissolubly interconnected and complementary: A stream of consciousness is transformed into gestures, interaction with objects, drawings and formulae setting up a highly complex embodied spatio-temporal diagram. In reference to the work of Robert Morris “Box with the Sound of Its Own Making” (1961) Gansterer is interested in mapping and thematizing the enabling conditions of art practice in itself and even taking it a step further.

Nikolaus Gansterer states: “I do cultivate practices of taking notes and annotations where space is not a neutral and theoretical entity but becomes a vivid and vibrant field of forces to be inhabited with my whole body, with all my senses, with a practice which is rather process than product-orientated, a practice which is moving through, moving with and moving along these lines of flight and a practice which is gaining a specific momentum – “where space is becoming at once result and cause, product and producer”(…) so to say space is becoming an „auto-poietic system“ (in the sense of Humberto Maturana & Francisco Varela) or even a „sympoietic system“ (in the sense of Beth Dempster & Donna Haraway). A system, or rather an organism which is rather putting focus on the emergence of presence than on re-presentation. This dynamic understanding of space-time means that space itself is not understood as a neutral nor empty container – but more understood as an ecology – which is playing a constitutive role in co-shaping these creative and inter-subjective processes that again determine the trinity – of the representations of space, the spatial practices, and the representational spaces (…) at least how I understood how Henri Lefebvre framed it.“

The visitors are able to witness the manifestation of a strong syncretism between art and research or rather art-as-research, which aims to investigate the intrinsic connections between both fields. Here, the gallery space for Nikolaus Gansterer becomes a space for (self-)experimentation where drawing is shown as the result of a complex choreography of thought processes developed and concretised through a series of performative actions in relation to the materials and artifacts in space.

The aim is to give a conceptual representation of a makeshift and enactivist model of the mind in constant evolution, which is precisely documented by a protocol of actions. Graphs, blackboards, diagrams, maps and systems of signs which apparently hark to scientific theories, all become traces of their very existence, an ephemeral testimony which open onto a speculative and poetic horizon of a drawn hypothesis.

Artist: Nikolaus Gansterer

Title: Space in a Space with the Traces of its own Making

Year: 2017

Materials: Paint, chalk, charcoal, acrylic glass, pencil shavings, wooden sticks, …

Dimensions: variable

Exhibition: Drawing Praxis, Gallery Marie-Laure Fleisch, Brussels, (10.03 – 01.04.2017)