microforces, Nils Benedikt Fischer
exhibition: 17.10.24 - 30.11.24
wed-sat 12:00-18:00

Nils Benedikt Fischer (*1987 in Dessau) is a visual artist who combines sculpture, engineering, and filmmaking. In his work, he explores the boundaries and intersections between the individual and technology. Using contemporary manufacturing processes, he designs technical artifacts that often preserve a personal sphere in the form of memories, narratives, or dreams. These artifacts are tailored to convey a single message and break away from the system of technological mass production, thereby becoming objects with their own framework, often representing states of fragility and doubt. Born and raised in Dessau, Fischer reflects on the search for identity and belonging, raising the question of what can be done to find one's place in an over-regulated world.
Although natural forces are usually associated with powerful and destructive events, they also encompass subtle processes that appear as early signs of things to come. The exhibition micro forces brings together two different series of technical objects that engage with personal memory and decision-making. Based on the tradition of oracle inquiry, the model of a seasonal flooding becomes the central metaphor for playfully engaging with the forces that shape one's path through life.

Inhabited Basins (2024),  kinetic object.

The series Inhabited Basins (2024) unfolds an inner landscape and questions past decisions that have led to profound changes in the artist’s life. The works consist of basins filled with a cooling lubricant and platforms that set the basins in motion. Each basin moves at a certain speed and radius, creating its own temporal metric. The cooling liquids have varying degrees of turbidity, veiling pictorial arrangements that serve as markers for the biographical crossroads displayed on a map in the center of the installation. The map consists of various landscapes which refer to biographical contexts of the artist. Overlapping one another, these landscapes lose their geographical validity and become an imaginary place of memory. A basin in the center collects drops of cooling liquid and periodically pours them onto different sections of the map. The seasonal flood (a familiar experience during the artist’s childhood) activates different areas of memory and serves as the fertile source to replenish the adjacent basins.

Flying Carpets (2024), kinetic obejct

Encountering the disturbed reflections of the past is also a central theme in the series Flying Carpets (2024), in which sheets of Kodak clear film move over polished aluminum plates. Each film contains the image of a space once inhabited by the artist. Through a process of encryption, the original content has been transformed into patterns resembling the geometry of carpets. Floating above the water-like aluminum surfaces, these carpets are kept in a permanent dance
with their own mirror images.

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