Press
Shining Faces / 2019
Shining faces” (2019-2020) is a photo series about the enticing radiation of displays. Screens, projections and primarily mobile phones; we are attached to this light source like wolves to the moonlight, with the difference that our heads go down not up. The potential origin of breaking news, heart-warming messages and photos. The intimacy of this moment, the separation from the outside world, the distraction between strangers. This private moment stolen from the demanding / tiresome reality; the volatile win in our complex time. These white light pollutions give us a new look, together with the brief emotions under the solidification of our faces and in our bodies.
The near and the elsewhere / 2020 – 2019
My project “The near and the elsewhere” (2018-2020) concentrates on the connection between people and their environment. Whether in the city, in the suburbs or in the countryside, the human aspect is present, even if people are physically absent. Mankind is changing the landscape and is trying to make it useful, solid and submissive.Melancholy and transience with elements of decay permeate this terrain shaped by man. And the question arises: How does man feel in this self-created landscape, when sometimes even a city feels like a desert. I observed this phenomenon worldwide and took the photos in different countries, but with a similar approach.
Project +49 157 362 961 96 / 2018
2D plotter, contract microphones, speakers, pen, paper, sms, DIY control box (arduino, mix of program languages). 2017-2018
2D plotter, contract microphones, speakers, pen, paper, sms, DIY control box (arduino, mix of program languages). 2017-2018
2D plotter, contract microphones, speakers, pen, paper, sms, DIY control box (arduino, mix of program languages). 2017-2018
Sent and automatically printed messages
Sent and automatically printed messages
2D plotter, contract microphones, speakers, pen, paper, sms, DIY control box (arduino, mix of program languages). 2017-2018
The Project +49 157 362 961 96 (2017) by Marcelina Wellmer is an interactive installation operating within the complex environment of telematic and mobile communication, on the verge of generative art and e-literature, with some features of a kinetic sound-sculpture. Sending a text message to the provided phone number initiates data processing, while the customised software and plotter hardware turn each SMS into a line of a manuscript. The outcome of the plotter’s movement imitates a human handwriting, although the written contents is neither imitated, nor artificial. It is an upshot of participants’ voluntary contribution. While the collaboratively created text as a whole, is an outcome of a random flow of messages, the process reveals the hidden curriculum of turning a raw thought into a coherent verbal statement. During the writing process, the plotter emits sound, reminding of the computer-mediated communication (CMC) taking place. Operating within the given affordances, it evokes not an artificial, but rather a collective intelligence contributed by both human and software-based actants. Although the idea may seem to reach back to the pioneering experiments in cyberarts, there is a contemporary approach of critical engineering and analysis of a creative process. While it examines the human-computer interactivity (HCI) paradigm, the project is focused on re-inventing rudiments of communication process through reinterpreting technology by questioning its primary characteristics.
*Ewa Wojtowicz, media art researcher and professor at University of Arts in Poznan/Poland
RGB / 2011
RGB 01 / video projection & painting on canvas / Processing / 250 x 180 cm / 2011
RGB 02 / video projection & painting on canvas / Processing / 250 x 180 cm / 2011
RGB 03 / video projection & painting on canvas / Processing / 250 x 180 cm / 2011
RGB 04 / video projection & painting on canvas / Processing / 250 x 180 cm / 2011
RGB 05 / video projection & painting on canvas / Processing / 250 x 180 cm / 2011
In the series “RGB” Wellmer projects rays of color onto black and white oil paintings. The additive color mixing of red, green and blue happens in realtime, based on generative code. Over time they change their color from red to green to blue in random speed. This happens so slowly that the eye can’t recognise it when observing the canvas constantly. Only when you look away for a minute and then look back, you will notice the difference. The shifted perspective of the oil painting gets expanded with drifting patterns of color.
The starting point for each of the paintings is a photo made by the artist. Marcelina Wellmer photographs the architecture of Berlin city, often office buildings or train stations. In reality gray and static, Marcelina Wellmer starts to fold them as soon as they are caught on her computer and starts to put them into color. Wellmer says:“To me it is a lively intervention from a human perspective.”
E.Wojtowicz, PhD Academy of Fine Arts Poznan / Poland
52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E / 2018 – 2016
52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E /10 lasered gps traces on black mdf /30 x 30 cm /
10 vibration speakers with GPS sound recordings /10 ultrasound sensors / Augsburg LAB 30 / 2018
52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E / Glucksmann Gallery / Cork 2019
52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E / Glucksmann Gallery / Cork 2019
52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E / Glucksmann Gallery / Cork 2019
Description:
In the interactive visual/sound installation 52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E the body in the urban space processes and analyzes the shape sphere of two capitals – Berlin and Warsaw. For several days the GPS application was recording every road traveled by the author of the project, first in Berlin, then in Warsaw, including the car parks and shopping malls as well as other points not always included in regular maps. 14 black MDF boards covered with these roads etched witch laser, illustrates the everyday, individual tracks. Thanks to the tracks, you can see how intricate or simple geometric or chaotic are the routes. You might ask: if the GPS signal weaved in search of a signal? What is the ultimate form of a “personal city” in Berlin and Warsaw – is it similar, or perhaps completely different? The whole route in two cities was copied to the wall of the XS gallery, and fragments of the resulting maps of Warsaw and Berlin can be seen only with a UV flashlight – so in order to see different parts of them, the visitors have to navigate through the gallery space (such as the area of the city). And as it happens with the city – at the end you can only see the path that is right in front of you or behind you – the rest is invisible. The second element of the installation is the sound. 10 vibration speakers attached behind the lasered boards plays the typical GPS commands like : “turn left”, “turn right”, “your destination is on the right”, etc. Every board has a one attributed command. If the visitor comes closer to the board to consider the lasered drawing, the ultrasound sensor react and give a signal to start the record. Because of the number of people and the time of contemplation every time we can hear another sound composition in the space.
52.2297° N, 21.0122° E // 52.5200° N, 13.4050° E / La Chapelle Sainte-Marthe in Montbron / France /2018
Sound preview / La Chapelle Sainte-Marthe / Montbron / France / 2018
DUST (A year of Dust) / 2016
DUST / interactive video projection 2015
DUST / interactive video projection / 2015
“Dust” and “Error 404 502 410” / B-Side Festival Mannheim 2017
“Dust” / screen capture / 2015
The work “Dust” combines generative HD video with the movement of the audience through camera tracking. Since some months I am collecting dust particles on a piece of black plexiglass. Monthly, I photograph the collected set, clean the surface and start from the beginning. The composition and the quantity of dust depend on the movement around the place and other random occurrences. One of the photographed sets I traced in a graphic program, the resulting graphical particles now get animated within the generative video software VVVV. A Kinetic 3D camera tracks the movement in front of the video projection – if somebody gets closer to the projection the dust speeds up and flies into all directions, triggered by the observers motion.
The movement of the pixel dust, although looking random, is based on close observations of real dust flying. A complex power field emulates the forces that also appear in real life.
The composition is never the same; it happens in real time and by chance – it is a generative chaos. The observers movement is interpreted as an artificial wind source.
We humans disturb the dust and let it fly faster. We are a source of wind and motion. Our bodies are now a part of a random, digital artefact, but with roots in real occurrences.
The second part of the project are paintings: the photographed dust is painted on canvas and becomes the name of the month – every month one painting. It will be a one year of dust.
DUST December/ acrylic on canvas, 150 x 180 cm / 2x / 2015
DUST February / acrylic on canvas, 20 x 30 cm / 2015
DUST January / acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm / 2015
DUST October/ acrylic on canvas, 50 x 50 cm / 2015
Woodpecker / 2014
Woodpecker / wooden board / solenoid, LED / 2014-2015
Woodpecker / wooden board / solenoid, LED / 2014-2015
Woodpecker / wooden board / solenoid, LED / 2014-2015
During my winter walks in the woods around Berlin I could often observe woodpeckers. Their knocking sounds were clean and loud to hear in the winter landscape. I started to record them. When I got the opportunity for a summer residency in Maajaam/Estonia I decided to bring the Berlin woodpecker sounds with me to built an object based on their abstract rhythms. I took a plank of Maajaam wood and istalled a solenoid on it. The motor knocks in the rhythm of the Berlin bird, in parallel an LED is flashing through one of 30 drilled holes in the plank. LED and knock are always in sync, the hole is chosen by random.
Technical aspects: The recording was cleaned up and equalized so that the knocks could be written into a file of 1s and 0s. This notation is used to trigger the solenoid and LEDs.
Woodpecker / backside – circuit, LED boards, Arduino / 2014 – 2015
The first version of the project I realised at Maajaam, a residency place in Estonia.(2014) I installed the solenoid in a old house on the yard. The woodpecker sound is greeting the visitors of Maajaam. For the first moment it is not obvious for the guests, that they hear to a mechanical bird. It is one of the recorded bird sounds in Berlin.
Woodpecker / version 1 / Maajaam / video documentation 2014
Scanned_Image / 2014
Scanned_Image01 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image02/ oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image03 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image04/ oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image05 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
Scanned_Image06 / oil on canvas / 150 x 110 cm / 2013 – 2014
The visual message (painting) have in backround electronic devices: a scanner, scanning the light of a desk lamp or them self – with a help of a mirror. The images emerged in a process of trial scanning with open scanner and moving the light or mirror during the process of scanning. The accidental incurred glitch was the base of the finish result – oil paintings. The process of painting computer generated pictures reverse the image back to a real object and it needs a physical effort. The human factor is back and responsible for variability and subjectivity.
The processing of “re-using” is a strategy of cultural garbology, based on the content of the digital rubbish. As a result of using the redundant data, both – digital images and regular paintings are remediated and shifted into a new aesthetical dimension.
“The randomness of the picture as a key quality, results from a kind of “reverse engineering” tactics that Marcelina Wellmer applies in her works. Using everyday devices, the artist reaches for the ready-made aesthetical formula but also engages them in a form of a transmedial dialogue. “E. Wojtowich/ PhD, Fine Arts Academy Poznan / Poland
Keywords: remediation, feedback, transmedia, scanning, systems aesthetics, randomness, reverse engineering.
Scanned_Image / 2015
Scanned_Image / 2x scanner, 2x webcam, computer, printer, shredder, 2x amp, 11x speaker, Arduino, sound card / 2015
in cooperation with Gösta Wellmer
Scanned_Image / 2x scanner, 2x webcam / 2015
Scanned_Image / LAB 30exhibition / Augsburg 2015 / Germany
Scanned_Image / 77 random prints / 2015
Scanned_Image / Pure Data / Gösta Wellmer/ 2015
Description
The work “Scanned_Image” is a circuit of random, technical occurrences. Two scanners are scanning each other – every time in a different, random resolution and at a different point in time. Two webcams relay the scanning process to the monitor and the printer reproduces the image of the scanners’ encounter. An office lamp, flickering along with the process of printing, amplifies the visual noise. The last device in the chain is a shredder – you can take the produced image with you or instantly destroy it.
Another element of the work is sound. Piezo and magnetic microphones attached to the technical devices collect their emitted sounds and electrical fields. The signals get amplified directly through twelve speakers in various frequencies and intensity. In parallel the sound gets processed by software on the computer, controlling the office light and creating a looping and feedbacking soundscape. The machines and devices are functioning in an independent, autonomous circuit, making the human factor obsolete. Humans can only take control by taking or destroying the resulting images of this automated process. But the next image is always already in production.
This materialization of images brings the process of remediation to another level. In the age of overabundance of artificial images it seems to be more interesting to focus on the underlying structure of their making, thanks on their actual content. Therefore, the devices, once called peripheral, are engaged in their reciprocal communication, independently and self-sufficiently.
Missing Files / 2012 – 2013
Missing File 01_02_03_04 / move (loop), MDF boxes / variables arrangement / 2012
Missing File 01_02_ / move (loop), MDF boxes / variables arrangement / 2012
Missing File 01_02_ / move (loop) /2012
Missing Files / computer, burnt paper /2012
Missing File 01_02_03_04 (..) / Oil on canvas, formed / plastic boxes – variables arrangement / 2013
Missing File 01_02_03_04 / Oil on canvas, formed in plastic boxes – variables arrangement / 2013
Missing File 06_07_ / oil on canvas / 150 x 150 cm & 160 x 210 cm / exhibition view Staycation Museum / 2013
In the series “Missing Files” the artist uses left overs of it’s own digital production. Old video project files that got corrupted by copying them too often become the foundation for new paintings, objects and video-installations. The videosoftware replaces missing files with “screen mates”, the former composed animations and cuts stay intact.
E.Wojtowicz, PhD, about “Missing Files” series.
“The noise in Marcelina Wellmer’s works is audiovisual, particularly in the series Missing Files (2011- 2013), that consists of screens with digital images and painted canvas.This work is inspired by the incompatibility of files, caused by the numerous copying operations within a computer. The illegible remains of audiovisual projects are revealed and processed, so the categories change completely: both paintings and digital images lose their functionality, receiving different features. The processing of rejected and damaged components is a strategy of cultural garbology, based on re-using the content of the digital rubbish. As a result of using the redundant data, both digital images and regular paintings are remediated and shifted into a new aesthetical dimension.”
Destroyed / 2011
Destroyed 01 / acrylic on canvas / video on canvas / sound / 2 pieces 150 x 150 cm / 2011
The works from the series Destroyed (2011) are diptychs, consisting of two parts: one is a regular painting, another one is a digital moving image (times by chance, processing). The processed images of industrial cityscapes and architecture become slowly dispersed, due to the projection onto the canvas. The unstable ontology of those images calls in question the cohesion of both the picture and the viewer’s experience. At the same time, the initial framework of architecture is displaced and because of the image’s transgression, disappears in the visual noise.
Destroyed 01 / exhibition view / Hoffman + Weiss Gallery / Berlin 2011
Destroyed 02 / exhibition view / Hoffman + Weiss Gallery / Berlin, 2011
ERROR 404 502 410 / 2018 – 2012
ERROR 404 502 410 / 3 hard discs, acrylic glass, PC Housing, Arduino, Piezos, Speakers / 2012 – 2019
ERROR 404 502 410
ERROR 404 502 410
What do computer errors sound like? In our everyday use of computers error messages are communicated without sound. Most likely you are presented with matter-of-fact information like, “Server Error. The server has encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request”, or “Oops…This link appears to be broken HTTP 404 File not found.” These silent messages are software interfaces designed to prevent you from having to worry about or engage with what is taking place at the deeper level of the computer‚s processor.
I created a group of hardware interfaces to three common errors that – beyond principles of usability – challenge the visitor to relate to the materiality of errors through the abstract qualities of sound.
Onto the disks of the drives I laser etched the 404 502 410 status codes in big Latin letters. Because of the lasered letters the disk routine stops and the write/read head goes back into its rest position, the disk powers down. A contact microphone is attached to the hard disk drive, recording the mechanical sounds of the moving disk and the write/read head. The sound gets amplified by an equalizer, pronouncing the rhythmical pattern of read action and the disk spinning. The boot routine creates a composition of random length and rhythm, that is always slightly different, depending on how and where on the spinning disk the read / write head gets distracted by the laser etched letters. While the disk is powered down and isn‚t spinning, the text becomes readable by the audience.
E.Wojtowicz, PhD, University of Arts, Poznan / Poland