B-side of a photograph of a sky, retouch traces printed on wallpaper, variable size Rendering of a cloud, UV-print on anti-reflective glass 210x130 cm

Installation views STORMY WEATHER @ Kunstraum Niederösterreich, Vienna, 2020 Installation views STORMY WEATHER @ CENTRE CULTUREL SUISSE, Paris, 2021

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For the exhibition STORMY WEATHER at Kunstraum Niederösterreich and Centre Culturel Suisse Paris I created a site-specific installation in 2 parts. The cloud as a symbol for divine mystery and protection signifies the generative, the destructive and the enigmatic. I approach the increasing virtualisation of human behaviours by zooming in on our relation to elusive and amorphous clouds. The series touches on the contemporary cloud that extends humankind’s environment and therefore becomes also a symbol for the transcendental.

It follows  a series of works dealing with the ambivalence of digital images. By creating hyper-romantic, natural-looking images of clouds and skies on the one hand and revealing their constructedness on the other, I show that even human-made, digital natural phenomena can become bearers of the effects of representation. The apparent optimization of digital images has been problematized in the media, particularly in relation to the digital post-processing of bodies, which produce unrealistic ideals of beauty and social norms. This debate shows that the constructedness of digital images creates a new frame of reference, indeed a new reality: not only for bodies, but also in relation to our natural environment. In this version of my work I make retouch marks of Photoshop visible to show the traces of interventions made through digital post production. In the exhibition space the cloud and the retouched photographic backside form a layered construction of our digital perception of nature.