Ecke Bonk
09 Apr - 15 May 2011
Ecke Bonk, Chaosmos Soundings II / Das Observatorium, 2011, Heidelberger Kunstverein, Fotografie: Markus Kaesler © Heidelberger Kunstverein
A grand piano stands on a stage in the hall of the Kunstverein. Individual notes ring out from its interior, as if played by an invisible hand, enveloping the room in an idiosyncratic soundscape. The piano translates the strange ubiquitous radiation not perceptible by human beings. Geiger counters send the radioactive signals to the piano via a computer.
“Chaosmos Soundings II / Das Observatorium”: Ecke Bonk uses a neologism from James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake for the title of this installation, in which two etymologically contrasting concepts – chaos and cosmos – have been fused together. In ancient Greece cosmos meant a regulated whole, a conception that the natural philosopher Heraclitus distilled when he wrote: “The most beautiful cosmos is a heap of random sweepings.”
Ecke Bonk’s work addresses explanatory models from science, art and philosophy. Alongside the central sound installation, the Heidelberg exhibition presents a series of portraits of important physicists and natural philosophers, who have carried out pioneering research into the building blocks of the world. The portraits, ink-jet prints on canvas, portray people who have decisively influenced our physical world view and thus our perception of the world.
The exhibition takes place at the same time as the Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg, the oldest institution of academic and scientific research in Germany, celebrates its 625th anniversary. Scientific and academic research attempts to make advances into unknown territories. It develops systems of signs and classifications which can be used to structure and interpret the world. Ecke Bonk’s oeuvre has the same objective in that it moves the invisible into the sphere of the perceptible and appeals to both scientists and artists to understand their work as a basic questioning of and challenge to the status quo.
“Chaosmos Soundings II / Das Observatorium” has been exhibited 2006 at the 3rd Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan. Due to the recent events is published an open letter of the director of the triennial, Fram Kitagawa, below "further information".
“Chaosmos Soundings II / Das Observatorium”: Ecke Bonk uses a neologism from James Joyce’s novel Finnegans Wake for the title of this installation, in which two etymologically contrasting concepts – chaos and cosmos – have been fused together. In ancient Greece cosmos meant a regulated whole, a conception that the natural philosopher Heraclitus distilled when he wrote: “The most beautiful cosmos is a heap of random sweepings.”
Ecke Bonk’s work addresses explanatory models from science, art and philosophy. Alongside the central sound installation, the Heidelberg exhibition presents a series of portraits of important physicists and natural philosophers, who have carried out pioneering research into the building blocks of the world. The portraits, ink-jet prints on canvas, portray people who have decisively influenced our physical world view and thus our perception of the world.
The exhibition takes place at the same time as the Ruprecht Karls University of Heidelberg, the oldest institution of academic and scientific research in Germany, celebrates its 625th anniversary. Scientific and academic research attempts to make advances into unknown territories. It develops systems of signs and classifications which can be used to structure and interpret the world. Ecke Bonk’s oeuvre has the same objective in that it moves the invisible into the sphere of the perceptible and appeals to both scientists and artists to understand their work as a basic questioning of and challenge to the status quo.
“Chaosmos Soundings II / Das Observatorium” has been exhibited 2006 at the 3rd Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial in Japan. Due to the recent events is published an open letter of the director of the triennial, Fram Kitagawa, below "further information".