Figures of Contingency

Based on images, materials and examples of his work Nikolaus Gansterer (Vienna) will introduce into his on-going practice of notation and practices of translation. Gansterer understands the processes of thinking and drawing as analogous. He is thus concerned with the fundamental question of how to translate processes of thought (both conscious and subconscious), and explores how the act of drawing can become a tool of communication. In order to approach the materiality of perception Gansterer applies a unique performative grammar, in which the artist’s flow of observations in relation to his environment manifest as captivating live drawings, diagrams and arrangements. He questions how these situative constructions of meaning could be expanded towards a radical sympoiesis: where a line of thought becomes a line on paper, turns into a line in space, and then again a line articulated with the whole body or transforms into an expanded object. In the course of the presentation Gansterer wishes to go in dialogue with the audience.

About the Artist

As an artist, performer and researcher Nikolaus Gansterer is interested in the links between drawing, thinking, and action. cross forms of installations and performances he traces the translatability of phenomena of perception into an artistic environment. In his transmedial work, he focuses on diagraming ephemeral and emergent processes unfolding their immanent structures of interconnectedness, questioning the imaginary threshold between nature and culture, art and philosophy. Since 2007 he is teaching at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna where he is board member of the Applied Performance Laboratory. He is author of the book Drawing a Hypothesis (2013) on the ontology of diagrammatic configurations. 2014-2018 he was developing new systems of notation between drawing, writing, and choreography within the interdisciplinary research project Choreo-graphic Figures Deviations from The Line. 2019-2024 he is leading key researcher of the artistic project Contingent Agencies for experimental diagramming of atmospheres and environments.

https://www.gansterer.org