Surroundings | Patrick Topitschnig

Opening: Tue, 21.04.2009, 7 pm
Patrick Topitschnig
in conversation with Matthias Dusini, critic (Falter)

Patrick Topitschnig’s works center on direct bodily experience and immediate reception, on enduring time and the measure of passing time respectively, and they do so on a visual or on an acoustic basis. Permanent repetitions or continuous oscillations constitute a recurrent aspect. The artist’s primary media are video and sound, which are mostly employed in installative contexts.
The video work “Limlich” shows a nocturnal winter wood illuminated by stroboscope flashes. The positioning of the projection surfaces at an angle of 45 degrees to each other endows the installation with an immersive character by completely enclosing the range of vision. The abstract foray into the tangle of branches evokes chains of associations causing the viewer’s own imagination to fill the picture.
The four-channel sound composition “Nouvelle Couleur – Chorus for Three Voices” unfolds a polarizing sound carpet. The lack of rhythm and the insignificantly increasing pitch prevent the listener from being able to relate to a direct musical clue. This creates a state of suspense of timelessness/loss of time which is experienced as oppressive or calming depending on the visitor’s attention. (PT)

Translation: Wolfgang Astelbauer

Patrick Topitschnig
Born in Rottenmann (Styria, Austria) in 1980, lives and works in Vienna, Austria.
Since 2007 has studied fine arts under Constanze Ruhm (art and digital media) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (Austria), since 2003 media design under Bernhard Leitner and Erwin Wurm, University of Applied Arts Vienna (Austria), and, from 2000 to 2003, economics and computer science (Bakk.rer.soc.oek.) at the Vienna University of Technology (Austria).

Grants and prizes
2008 Ursula Blickle video prize (Austria) | 2007 grant of the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Austria) | Fred Adlmüller grant | grant of the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria

Curator-in-residence 08|09: Elsy Lahner