Robert Henke Transition Machine
Solo exhibition
Main hall, Färgfabriken
A meeting between art and technology.
Robert Henke’s Transition Machine is an installation of multiple dismantled video displays, computers and sound, suspended from the ceiling across Färgfabriken. Evoking associations of a mechanical yet organic and seemingly living organism, Transition Machine makes use of computer software to generate an evolving network of vision and sound. Stills from abandoned industrial sites and wide empty landscapes merge and transform to present perfectly believable realities, or obscure contradictions of geometries, perspectives, shapes and textures. Simultaneously, a computer-generated soundscape fills Färgfabriken, sometimes matching the visual states, sometimes contrasting them. Transition Machine creates an infinite number of unpredictable variations, a slowly pulsating and breathing post-apocalyptic entity.
With Transition Machine, visitors are invited to become immersed in and explore Henke’s vast experiential environment, in a meeting between art and technology.
About the artist
Robert Henke (b. 1969, Munich) is a composer, sound designer, software developer, installation artist and performer. Henke’s work uses sound to explore space, creating evolving sonic states that invite audience immersion. His practice as an artist and musician moves from interactive installations to electronic music that has its roots in both academic sound research as well as club culture (which he produces under the moniker of Monolake). Further to his work as a practicing artist Henke is one of the founding developers of the Ableton Live software, an industry standard tool for music production. Henke teaches as a professor of sound design at the University of Arts in Berlin. Robert Henke has presented performances and installations at such institutions as the Tate Modern, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; MUDAM, Luxembourg; and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney. In 2007 his work ‘Layering Buddha’ received an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica. ‘Layering Buddha Live’ was performed at Färgfabriken in 2009 as part of the OSC09 festival.
Robert Henke is performing at the end of the installation. Not to be missed! Sunday 9th january, three o’clock.