Synaesthesia / 1
The Orange Smell of November
Barbara Ryan | Annette Stahmer
As the first part of the series Synaesthesia, Art Laboratory Berlin presents the exhibition The Orange Smell of November with new works by Barbara Ryan and Annette Stahmer.
The term “synaesthesia”, from the Greek “aisthesis” (“Sensation”, “sensory impression”) and “syn” (“together”) meaning the experience of two or more sensory impressions at the same time, is both an artistic paradigm and neurological phenomena. It has been prominent in the melding of the arts from the Renaissance masque through Romanticism and Symbolism, and played a major role in the 20th century avant-garde. This phenomenon of synaesthetic perception can be mirrored in the multimediality of our technological age. This interdisciplinarity of the senses led Art Laboratory Berlin to search for artists who either use synaesthesia as a basis for their work, or who incorporate their own synaesthesia in their art.
The artist Barbara Ryan’s perceptions of the world are underpinned by her polymodal synaesthesia which in turn forms the foundation of her artistic work. She experiences her synaesthesia »as something that is in her parallel conscious – as opposed to something that is in the subconscious, creating a duality of vision«. Her installation That can’t be September – it smells like the August of 1985! combines in a unique way the artist’s intimate personal relationship between scent, color, time and space, played out within the city of Berlin, where she lived in the 1990s.
The work of the Berlin typographer and artist Annette Stahmer revolves around language, the relationship between voice and writing, the act of writing, palimpsests and synaesthesia. The two videos in the exhibition – A ist blau and Synästhetische Bilder I – IV – show the artist’s mother, a synaesthete who connects vowels with certain colors. The focus is on language that, following this internal logic, serves not only as a description of this phenomena, but becomes in itself material, assuming color and consistency. Therefore it evokes within the listener poetic, almost surreal images.
Synaesthesia – a theoretical introduction (.pdf)
Press Feedback
Reboot FM – Lautstrom #26 Initiative der Projekträume Berlin (Excerpt about Annette Stahmer)
art-in berlin, Inka Humann: A ist blau – ein Künstlergespräch mit Annette Stahmer bei Art Laboratory Berlin
Venue
Art Laboratory Berlin
Prinzenallee 34, 13359 Berlin
Dates and opening hours
Opening: 26 October 2012, 8PM
27 October – 16 December 2012
28 October 2012, 4PM – Artist talk and workshop with Barbara Ryan
16 December 2012, 3PM Artist talk with Annette Stahmer & Finnisage
Curators
Regine Rapp & Christian de Lutz
Team
Regine Rapp, Christian de Lutz, Olga Shmakova, Anastasia Shavlokhova,
Photo documentation
Art Laboratory Berlin
Cooperation partners
Media partners
Supported by
Our 2012 programme is made possible in part by a generous gift from Michael Schröder
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Synaesthesia / 2
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Inquiries into the nature of Space and Perception are the basis of Art Laboratory Berlin’s second exhibition in the Synaesthesia series. Synaesthesia, the experience of two or more sensory impressionsat the same time, is both an artistic paradigm and neurological phenomenon.
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Synaesthesia / 3
- History of the Senses
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History of the Senses deals with the phenomenon of synaesthesia from the point of view of art and media history. The two artistic positions refer back to different movements from the 20th Century giving the four-part exhibition series on synaesthesia a historical component
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Synaesthesia / 4
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