Tag: Animation

Entity Dreams Body

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation
Entity Body Simulation Boundaries
Entity dreams body, 2025, room installation with 2 videos, tv sculpture, 10 polaroids. Simulation.

In Entity Dreams Body, the boundaries between life and simulation are explored: A breathing skin balloon rises and falls, next to it a child’s toy whose lifelike eyes return the gaze. Human fragments, technology, and toys merge into a hybrid being – familiar and eerie at the same time.

The work negotiates the boundaries between humans and machines, between what is technically feasible and what is ethically acceptable. Prostheses and enhancements do not appear as progress, but as unsettling transformations that alienate humanity. Instead of envisioning harmonious coexistence, the installation reveals the ambivalence and unease of a possible future: Where does the synthetic begin to transform the human? And how can a balance between humanity and alienation still be conceived in a world of permanent enhancement?

Hybrid Reality

This idea is embodied in ten Polaroids showing a toy – strikingly similar to the hybrid creature – in the hands of a child. The photographs are based on documentary material and bear the traces of a real past.

From another corner of the room, a voice muses on “posthumanism.” A tower of pedestals rises before the viewer, topped by a small CRT television that serves as a “head.” On its screen, the digitally reconstructed face of a child appears, created from archival material. Meanwhile, the voice and accompanying text are generated by artificial intelligence.

The work combines memory and technological simulation and condenses questions about identity, reproduction, and the role of humans in the posthuman age.

Music: Rasmus Kassnel-Henneberg

2025, video with sound, 4:11 min, cgi, animation

10 polaroids, 2025 / 2015 / 2011

2025, Video with sound, 2:20 min, cgi, animation

A New Humanism in the Digital Transformation

At the center of Kassnel-Henneberg’s work is the question of a new humanism. It focuses on the role of humans in a digital world. She explores how artificial intelligence, algorithms, and digital systems are changing what it means to be human. At the same time, she critically asks whether humans can still act autonomously when technological processes influence or even replace decisions.

Her works open a discourse on the relationship between biological existence and technological expansion. This theme runs through her entire Time-Based Media Art portfolio. It shows how technology deeply shapes human perception and identity.

Cross-Media Practice Between Analog and Digital

Kassnel-Henneberg understands her artistic practice as a bridge connecting analog and digital worlds. Therefore, she works across multiple media, including:

  • Video
  • CGI (Computer Generated Imagery)
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Polaroid Photography
  • Collage and Mixed Media

Through this combination, she creates works that exist between reality and simulation, and between documentation and construction. The audience is invited to critically reflect on their perception, which is increasingly shaped by media. At the same time, the use of analog techniques creates a compelling dialogue between past and present.

Education and Interdisciplinary Foundations

Her artistic development is based on an interdisciplinary education. First, she studied restoration at the Bern University of the Arts. There, she learned technical skills and developed a deep understanding of materiality, history, and cultural heritage. She then studied Interactive Media at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences.

This combination of conservation knowledge and digital media expertise forms the foundation of her Time-Based Media Art portfolio. It allows her to connect traditional and modern techniques effectively.

Exhibitions, Festivals, and International Recognition

Kassnel-Henneberg’s works have been presented nationally and internationally. A highlight is her solo exhibition “Uncanny Valley” at the Neue Galerie in the Höhmannhaus of the Augsburg Municipal Art Collections. The exhibition addressed the uncanny feeling that arises when artificial systems increasingly resemble humans.

Additionally, she has participated several times in the FILE – Electronic Language International Festival in São Paulo. This festival is one of the world’s leading platforms for digital and time-based media art. It underscores the international relevance of her work.

Awards and Artistic Recognition

  • 2013: Krumbach Art Prize for the book object “Heimat ist anderswo”
  • 2022: Augsburg District Art Prize for her overall body of work

These awards recognize not only her ongoing engagement with identity, memory, and social change. They also demonstrate the significance of her Time-Based Media Art portfolio in contemporary art.

Teaching, Jury Work, and Media Culture

In addition to her artistic practice, Kassnel-Henneberg works as a lecturer. She teaches at Augsburg University of Applied Sciences and various private art academies. Moreover, she actively participates in juries and supports emerging positions in media art.

Her teaching and curatorial work complements her artistic practice. It also strengthens the discourse around time-based media art in Germany.

Conclusion: Time-Based Media Art as Societal Reflection

Erika Kassnel-Henneberg’s work exemplifies contemporary art that combines aesthetic innovation with social relevance. Her Time-Based Media Art portfolio invites reflection on humanism, technology, and identity in a connected world. At the same time, it shows how art can provide guidance and critical reflection in a complex digital reality. https://eri-kassnel.de/sichtbar-verknuepft-frei/ https://gedok-muc.de/

The Eternal Hunt

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation
2025, video with sound, animation, 4:31 min

In an undefined space and timeless state, we circle around two faceless avatars from changing perspectives. Who – or what – are they? Projections of real people, intelligent machines, or something in between? Can machines develop desires, dreams? A golden apple floats between them, its reflective surface expanding the real space. All their efforts revolve around the golden apple – and yet it remains out of reach.

Perpetuum Mobile

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation
Spatial installation, 76th Great Swabian Art Exhibition, Hall 1 – Room for Art in the Glaspalast, Augsburg, 2024

This video shows a corridor-like room without doors or windows. Like a precise clockwork mechanism, a pendulum with a light bulb swings back and forth, alternately illuminating the opposite walls, which are covered with fragments of memory. Floral wallpaper from the parents’ bedroom, a devotional image, a stuffed deer head – relics that at first appear personal and familiar. With each swing of the pendulum, however, the intimacy of the scene tips into a claustrophobic experience and opens up the space for a universal question about repetition and relapse. The room becomes an archive in which biographical and historical elements overlap indistinguishably.

We are part of this time loop, which acts as a mirror of the present. Power struggles, authoritarian shifts, and the resurgence of old ideologies do not appear as new phenomena, but as variations on a familiar pattern. The present seems like an echo of past conflicts, amplified by constant media presence and algorithmic sorting.

What begins as a private memory expands into a question of time and duration: the relationship between forgetting and eternity in a world that stores everything and simultaneously represses it. An AI designs mathematical models for this. Eternity appears as an infinite iteration without a termination condition, forgetting as a limit value that approaches zero without ever reaching it. Neither formula describes a solution, but rather a state of permanent repetition.

This logic continues in the transition to the physical installation. Objects from the video reappear in real space, dissolving the boundary between virtual and physical space. A devotional image of the Christ Child feeding doves and ceramic animal skulls reflect the motifs shown. Individual objects reappear on Polaroids on the wall, including the stuffed deer head. Through this repeated translation between media, things circulate between reality, image, and meaning. Documentation, staging, and ideology become indistinguishable. The space appears both real and constructed – as a symbol of a present in which historical relics, political narratives, and media repetitions create an experience of permanent recurrence.

Probability of ‘forgetting’ (AI-generated)

Explanation of the variables:

P(F): Probability of forgetting. This lies between 0 and 1

M: Memory strength. It describes how well the information is anchored in the memory. A high value for M reduces the probability of forgetting.

R: Relevance. The more relevant information is, the more it is remembered and the less likely it is to be forgotten.

P: Perception. Describes the intensity with which the information is absorbed. A high intensity of perception reduces forgetting.

SM: Mental State. This value influences the ability to perceive and retain information. A high value means a stable mental state and reduces forgetting.

t: Time – Time. The probability of forgetting increases with increasing time.

Interpretation:

This formula is based on an exponential decay model, similar to the model of radioactive decay or other forms of memory loss over time. When memory strength, relevance, perception and psychological state are all high, the value in the exponent is very large, and P of F approaches 0, which means that the probability of forgetting is low. However, as time t increases, the exponent becomes smaller, bringing P(F) closer to 1 – forgetting becomes more likely.

Deep Paradise in St. Konrad

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation

3. 11. to 3.12.2023

Vernissage on November 3 at 7 p.m. in St. Konrad, Bärenstr. 22, 86156 Augsburg, Germany.

Finissage on December 3.

The apple was and is in many cultures of high symbolic power: Be it as a symbol for eternal youth, eternal life, for love, fertility, paradise and fall of man. In this videoinstallation we circle around a golden apple. We recognize familiar places in the Bärenkeller (a district of Augsburg) in the background and on its reflecting surface. Like foreign bodies, two-dimensional portraits of various people float in it. Who are these people? The holy family? Our neighbors? They never existed, but are outputs of an artificial intelligence. Is this paradise on earth?

https://pg-augsburg-oberhausen-bärenkeller.de/kunstinstallationen/

contribution from katholisch 1 tv

Virtual Tour

Deep Paradise

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation
Deep Paradise @ St.Konrad / Augsburg-Bärenkeller, 2023, video installation with sound, 6:07 min

The apple was and is highly symbolic in many cultures: be it as a symbol of eternal youth, eternal life, love, fertility, paradise and the fall of mankind.

In this installation, a golden apple floats in the air like a fixed star. Familiar places are reflected on its shiny surface (in the Bärenkeller district of Augsburg). How are people doing there and in the world?

In contrast, the two-dimensional portraits in this landscape appear strange. Who are these people? The Holy Family? Our neighbours? They never existed, but are the outputs of an artificial intelligence. We live in a time of upheaval. New technologies give us the feeling that we are increasingly losing control over truth and lies, over good and evil. Is this paradise on earth?

The apple hides a secret inside, because there is a small star made up of 5 seeds. It reminds us that our actions determine whether we come a little closer to “paradise on earth”.

The site-specific video installation refers to the real space: church, district, city… by showing it as a digital mirror image, which in turn is reflected by the shiny surface of the golden apple. A kind of visual recursion in which reality and fiction, analog and digital merge.

Rabbit Hole 4.0

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation
2020, 3D-Animation, 9:45 min

Suzanne is lured into a seductive virtual dream – guided by flashing buttons and a calming voice assistant promising relief from insomnia. Unbeknownst to her, she is part of a behavioral experiment designed to manipulate her actions through algorithmic control.

The film rejects traditional narrative in favor of a fragmented, immersive loop that mirrors the disorienting logic of digital platforms – addictive, cyclical, and subtly coercive.

Social networks now shape a global economy in which attention is the most valuable resource. What appears to be free access conceals a deeper cost: constant surveillance and behavioral conditioning by tech corporations using Attention Engineering – a system that combines persuasive design, gamification, and AI, grounded in psychology.

Rabbit Hole 4.0 explores the loss of personal agency in a world where algorithms anticipate needs before we are aware of them. It reflects on the illusion of choice, the commodification of behavior, and the quiet erosion of self-determination in an era of total digital recall.

At its core, the film poses a simple but urgent question: in a world shaped by invisible influences, do we still have control over ourselves?

Learn more.

Cause & Effect

Posted on | by Erika
Videoinstallation, 0:14 min

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Patterns

Posted on | by Erika
Start ► Animation

Nature is determined by chaos as the driving force that leads to order. The strongest form of order is a pattern or rhythm.

2016, Videoinstallation, 9:50 min

“After all, rhythm is the repeated pattern itself – the code and the looping. And we all dance to that. We dance to a choreography that is pre-programmed into the interface. This choreography has power: it is the planned moves of control.(…) But really we are just making the same old moves that everyone else on the dance floor is pushing out of their (seemingly) free flowing limbs. We dance, and we are part of the choreography of control.” Renee Carmichael/ fleeimmediately.com

Part one – Patterns

Patterns are regularly recurring structures generated from modules in predefined order and repetition. As individuals and social beings we are naturally influenced by patterns: heartbeat and breath have a rhythm (auditory pattern). The genetic code resembles a pattern. Metabolism is determined by “patterns”: Nutrient absorption, transport, transformation and excretion – as well as the course of nature: spring, summer, autumn and winter – birth, growth, reproduction and death. We surround ourselves with patterns: wallpaper, patterned textiles, music, dance, customs, behaviour. Patterns give us security because they are predictable.

Part two – the machinery

Patterns also help individuals to fit harmoniously into society and contribute to its success. This fact makes us similar to machines. These work because drives and gears follow certain patterns and thus keep the machinery moving.

Part Three – Perpetual Motion

We are part of a system made up of individuals who function according to patterns. If one part fails, it is replaced by another working element – a principle that keeps a system in constant motion.

Dancer: Alessandra La Bella, Jennifer Ruof, Silvana Lemm, Therese Madeleine Thonfors, Natalie Farkas

Memento…Boltanski!

Posted on | by Erika

2016, 4:55min, fHD Video 16:9

“Because one thing is stronger than us, namely the eternal progression of time, which never stops and inevitably leads to death.”

Christian Boltanski

An artificial choreography is generated by stringing together and repeating 25 still images. A rhythm is formed by modules of natural and artificial sounds (water drops and the clatter of a machine). A whispering voice recites “The Burial of the Dead” from the poem “The Waste Land” by T.S. Eliot.

In the left part of the screen is a static image that at first glance resembles a sacred motif, perhaps an altar of some sort. In fact, it is a table with a bird’s nest in the light of a neon lamp. In it lie small bird skeletons.

Memento… Boltanski! ” is a vanitas dance on the futility of life.

The basis of this work are photographs in long exposure taken during a dance rehearsal. Since the order of the photos was rearranged by me, the resulting “dance” has nothing to do with the original choreography. On the acoustic level I proceeded in a similar way: from water dripping and machine noises I selected single elements and put them together to a rhythm.
All sounds were produced and edited by myself, exclusively for this work.

Dancer: Dominik Feistmantl

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