Wolfgang Spahn

 

 

 

Wolfgang Spahn is an Austrian-German visual artist living in Berlin. His work includes interactive installations, miniature slide paintings and performances with light & sound. His art explores the field of analog and digital media, focusing on both their contradiction and correlation. Therefore, he also specializes in the reappropriation and reuse of electronic technologies.
In Spahn's immersive audiovisual performances, the technically different production of images and sounds merges. The data stream of a digital projector becomes audible, while the sound produced by electromagnetic fields of coils and motors is visualized.
Spahn is fascinated by patterns and structures, whether in graphics, photography, video or electronic technology. He seeks to bring out the beauty of disruption, subverting the perfect surface that the contemporary new media industry seeks to achieve.

For his creations, he explores the capabilities of hardware, constantly pushing its limits to put it at the service of his artistic concept. Recently, he has developed and uses analog synthesizers as well as analog computers and analog neural networks to create abstract light and sound sculptures.

Wolfgang Spahn is a faculty member of Sound Studies and Sonic Arts, University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany.

Spahn has presented his work in national and international exhibitions and has also been featured in international media art festivals.

 

Patagonian Pattern, 2021

The work "Patagonian Pattern" by Wolfgang Spahn is an audiovisual exploration of the mathematical theory of chaos. The focus is on Benoit Mandelbrot's ideas of the self-similarity of fractal structures in nature. The sounds of analogue synthesizers and analogue neural networks complement the visual aspect of the self-similarity of Patagonia's nature, both on a large and macro/microscopic scale.

Electrical signals, for both audio and video, have been generated by analogue circuits based on Strange Attractors, Fibonacci series, chaotic oscillations and feedback loops. In addition, the work shows macroscopic and microscopic patterns, textures and structures of lichens, mosses and algae, superimposed on aerial shots from planes and with kites. The texture of lichen and moss was recorded with laser beams. These modulated waves were converted into sound and additionally used as colour information in video signals.

*Interesting Side Note.

The artwork consists of analog computers, synthesizers and media players that were then poured epoxy resin. There are only two cables, one power supply and one output. The artwork is designed so that you can no longer access the media player. There is no more access to the data. After you connect the artwork, it starts by itself and the video artwork is played. Ergo: A real existing token.

2021, Video art, media player, epoxy resin, monitor with audio speaker.

Patagonian Pattern 2021, Courtesy of the Art Claims Impulse 

Echo State Network, 2019

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 https://wolfgang-spahn.de/doku.php/installation:echo_state_networks

the sonification of the computing process in an analog neural network, 2019

The first song a computer intoned was in the 1970s when an IBM 704 at the Bell Labs sang‘ Daisy Bell’. The same song was sung by the artificial intelligence HAL-9000 in the film “2001: A Space Odyssey” by Stanley Kubrick. But why should an AI sang human songs?
Won’t they prefer their own beats and melodies?
The sonic structures produced by the eternal oscillation of analog neural networks is the more possible soundtrack when the technological singularity is reached and AI takes over. At that point in the future, when technology becomes uncontrollable - like the mathematischen John von Neumann predicted in the 1950s - the remains of the human civilization will probably listen to some kind of “Echo State Network”.

 

 Courtesy of the Artist

The installation raises the question: can one hear the firing of neurons? Does their action potential have pitch and timbre? How do patterns and structures of a neural network look and sound? And what will happen if the network listen to these sound and pattern, too - and feeds this information back into the network?

At the core of the sound installation “Echo State Network” by Wolfgang Spahn is an artificial analog neural network that generates sonic pattern and audible structures. The circuit of the neuron is an adaption of an early neural model originally designed by Japanese mathematician Shun'ichi Amari to explain the human heart beats. Thus the factor time and feedback are added to the network. Compared to Facebook and Google networks this neural systems is much more complex and manifold in its appearance. One can say this analog artificial network mirrors far more the chaotic human nature than the digital AI implementations.

 

 Courtesy of the Artist

As part of his Analog Computer Confetti the artist created an analogue electric circuit that mimic a model of a neuron. More than 150 of the Confetti Neurons will form an analogue version of a so called “Echo State Network”. And because the model for that neuron was developed to explain our heart beat this network will oscillate, pulse and create most complex pattern one can see and listen to.

 

 Courtesy of the Artist

 

An Echo State Network is a particular kind of model of a recurrent neural network. At it‘s core is a complex, chaotic and back coupling neural network, similar to a Liquid-State Machine. At the networks input layer a couple of sensors will react to sound and light. Brightness and frequencies will be processed and fed back in the Echo State Network. A couple of firing neurons that oscillates in a audible frequency will form the output layer. Indicator LEDs shows the action in the network as well as 8 speakers make these activity hearable at 8 different nodes of the network. Thus the visitor can witness the activity in the neural network and can get an idea of the complexity of these processes.

 

Strange Attractors, 2019

 

Courtesy Art Claims Impulse

A Lorenz System controlled by an other Lorenz System, 2019

Ever since the mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot geometrically described structures in nature as ‘self-similar systems’ in „How Long Is the Coast of Britain? Statistical Self-Similarity and Fractional Dimension“ a paper published in 1967, fractal structures have remained a subject of artistic enquiry. Strange attractors in their quality of chaotic fractals constitute together with self-similar structures an important part of chaos research, and feature as core and lead theme of the installation.


Courtesy Art Claims Impulse

„Strange Attractors“ is about a generative system for sound and projections based on the analogue computer Confetti (developed by the artist) that calculates these Strange Attractors.

„Strange Attractors” rises the question if climate can be predicted, described by Julia Slingo, and Tim Palmer in Uncertainty in weather and climate prediction.

The title of the work refers to the mathematical term of the same name (David Ruelle / Floris Takens, 1971) borrowed from chaos theory which describes physical laws of chaotic behaviour in dynamic processes. Based on strange attractors it’s possible to for instance to mathematically describe turbulent currents of liquids or gases that cannot otherwise by analytically captured due to their complexity and level of randomness. In the installation two Lorenz Attractors are used to generate the sound as well as the visuals.


Courtesy Art Claims Impulse

The work raised the question of the artistic definition of boundaries in a space which in fact is determined by coincidence. Strange attractors are defined among others by the fact that they always establish a limiting framework or an according order within which the actual chaos can take place. This means that – at least from a mathematical perspective – haphazardness and chaos are enabled by a framework that creates an order, because without this framework any conceivable chaotic system would rise ad infinitum, and by doing so would escape observation and description. If this thought were transferred to art, it would mean that artistically created chaotic systems would not be visible or audible. Accordingly, the installation raises the question whether the artists themselves create the framework that creates the order, allowing the work to emerge ‘haphazardly’.

 Courtesy Art Claims Impulse

The work was show in the exhibition “Self-Similar and Strange” at Art Claims Impulse in Berlin, 2019.

 

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Its organic if you have a closer look, 2017.

Courtesy Art Claims Impulse

The audio-video installation It's Organic If You Look Close Enough by artist Wolfgang Spahn aims to deconstruct the so-called perfect surface created in the virtual sphere by contemporary digital technology. By exploring the surface of OLED monitors through macro film, the camera makes visible the frayed edges of the Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs). This creates images that would not be visible to the naked eye: The supposedly homogeneous perfect squares are actually uniquely shaped, frayed and uneven when approached with the macro lens.

A triptych of three OLED monitors, each equipped with a Raspberry Pi camera, shows patterns created and re-created by macro-films of the frayed pixels. Thus, each monitor is both source and display of the patterns generated in an endless feedback loop. These patterns are manifold, as macrofilms magnify their objects, performatively generating changes in terms of structure, color, and dimension of the images.



Courtesy of the Artist

In this respect, the installation speaks both to the organic structure of OLEDs and to the analog technology that is part of the digital interfaces. In doing so, it creates disillusionment: the purely digital surface can only exist as an abstract reality within the virtual sphere. The moment digital data is made accessible - whether through the use of monitors, cameras, or any technology that allows data to be stored, shared, or visualized - the pure digital surface is interrupted by the hardware of the interfaces, which always contains analog technology.

Nevertheless, the installation also includes virtual space. The VGA (Video Graphics Array) input signals of the OLED monitors are tracked and their audio amplified and streamed. In this respect, the imprecise sound resulting from the organic images will be publicly available in the virtual space. The sonification of the data can be understood as interference: organic material interferes with the perfect surface of the abstract virtual sphere.

Courtesy of the Artist

 

Entagled Pixels

 

 

 

 

Noctilucent

 

 

 

 

 

Bilder einer Ausstellung



Courtesy of the Artist

Courtesy of the Artist

eine Klang-Bild Installation
von Wolfgang Spahn, 2014

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Almost 100 years after the invention of the Intonarumori by futurist Luigi Russolo and the kinetic sculpture "Light-Space-Modulator" by artist and Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy, the installation "Picture of an Exhibition" combines the functions of these two systems into a single machine.

Abstract generated projections correspond with equally abstract live generated sounds. Permanently moving patterns and artifacts emerge on a projection screen behind a laboratory-like structure. Parallel to this, a recurring auditory experience develops, reminiscent of rolling stones in a riverbed. Inspired by the program music "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Modest Mussorgski, the installation by
Wolfgang Spahn, the sound is generated directly from the image. A laser is used to scan the surface of a picture plate. The resulting light fluctuations are amplified and made audible. By means of an analog synthesizer circuit (bass drum of an 808) volume is added to the sound.

 

The rotating image disc is a chemical-physical color experiment created in miniature painting mode from finely pigmented substances and nano-liquids. A macro camera now films and enlarges this abstract image and projects it behind the installation. All the techniques used are the artist's own developments and are based on open hardware and software (www.dernulleffekt.de). The camera consists of the small Linux computer
Raspberry Pi. The control of the rotation is generated with a Pure Date patch on this computer.

 

Entropie

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Entropy, an audio (noise)-visual performance 

Both, image and sound are generated from different analog and digital self-developed machines. The development of the film / moving image began first with the artificial separation of these. Through the separation of the image and the sound it was only possible to create films. The artwork Entropy brings them together again and cancels the artificial separation. Entropy makes the data streams of the digital projector audible and creates an audio-visual presentation of the electromagnetic fields consisting of coils and motors.
 

CV

Solo Exhibitions

2019 “Self-Similar and Strange” Art Claims Impulse, Berlin, Germany
2018 „Maailmankaikkeus“ (with Antti Pussinen and Dominik Eggerman) Diskurs Berlin, Germany
2018 “Symbolic Grounding” (with Christian Faubel) Glasmoog KHM, Köln, Germany
2018 “Symbolic Grounding” (with Christian Faubel) Gallery Diskurs, Berlin, Germany
2013 “Directions“ IWALEWAHAUS, Bayreuth, Germany
2011 “Analog_ien“ Galerie Durynek und Kammler, Eichstätt, Germany
2009 “Asymmetische Systeme II: Eis Sprung” Galerie Ardes, Berlin, Germany
2005 “Klima - Wandler …und wo sind die Myzelien” Galerie 35, Berlin, Germany
2003 “Himmel und Hölle“, Galerie 35, Berlin, Germany
2002 “Wir bau´n uns einen Führerbunker“, Galerie 35, Berlin, Germany
2001 “buy.onic“, Hot Pixel Gallery, Berlin, Germany
2000 “Kinetische Lichtobjekte“, Kunstverein ACUD, Berlin, Germany
1998 “Malanggan und was von SERO sonst noch übrig blieb“ Kunsthaus Tacheles, Berlin, Germany
1996 „Wechselstrombildung“, Orange Age, Berlin, Germany

 

Group Exhibitions

 

fünf minuten in die zukunft. Jörg Piringer.

03.04.24 - 18.05.24 Mi-Sa/Wed-Sat 12.00-18.00

text images, text videos, voice performance

"five minutes into the future" is the latest book by jörg piringer. it contains poems and text images that reflect life in the hybrid digital-analogue world. in it, machine art merges with a humanistic view of the world, criticism of social networks with affirmation of a technical romanticism, artificial unintelligence with human banality.

In the exhibition, the text images and text videos are shown, which refer to the content of the book. the performance makes the texts resonate and adds another dimension to them.

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5 min in die zukunt  - B, 6'05'' Full HD. Edition: 1/3

Jörg Piringer, is an Austrian artist and author, participant of the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize 2020. His works are a unique fusion of poetry and technology. Piringer is a boundary explorer, a digital poet who uses the possibilities of artificial i

Performance

1 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

 

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abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz is an audiovisual voice performance. image and sound are created in real-time through custom written software that analyzes and captures the sound of my voice to create animated abstract visual text/sound-compositions. the autonomous movement and behaviour of visual element on the screen again influence the sound which creates an audiovisual feedback loop or an autopoetic live performance system.



        

using my voice as the interface and medium in a dynamic electronic environment takes the ideas of the early avantgarde sound and visual poets a step further: my custom written software makes it possible to generate unforeseen and vanishing abstract text/sound-compositions that are created on the spot while performing and are not meant to last.

as a dynamic and reactive system abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz interacts with the performer by taking the voice as an input to various flexible modules that produce output. the mapping of the input signal to the actual output that can be seen and heard by the performer and the audience is determined by algorithms taken from non-literary fields like physics, biology and mathematics.



    

textual and sound particles for example interact with each other controlled by the law of simulated newtonian physics, so when they collide they sound, get destroyed or reflected.

therefore abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz could not only been seen as an abstract work of dynamic sound and visual poetry but also as the implementation of an updated poetic concept of describing the world or "everything, that is the case".

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz is a work in progress because of the vast complexity of intented functionality of the software as well as the multiplicity of possible artistic ideas.



 

Installation

 

1 unicode infinite

  


                                                              

 

unicode infinite is a generative infinite text video installation. It animates the glyphs of the basic multilingual plane of the unicode standard and presents this range
of the human culture of writing as a polyphonic text video installation. Characters are appearing in a very fast sequence sorted by optical similarity that was
calculated by an automatic recognition process.

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unicode infinite was shown on 16 plasma screens from july 12 to september 21, 2013 at Galerie b (curated by Johannes Auer) at Stadtbibliothek Stuttgart (Germany) and at the exhibition „signs of life“ (curated by Lukas Löcker) at Raumschiff in Linz (Austria).








 

2 untitled




   

 

 

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an interactive sound poetry installation

the visitors speak, shout and cry into a microphone to evoke a dynamic world of letters and vocal sounds.

image and sound are created immediately by speaking and vocalizing into a microphone and modifying the voice through signal processing while the software is analyzing the sound to create animated abstract visual text-compositions.

untitled was shown in berlin (germany), kassel (germany), buffalo (usa) and rio de janeiro (brazil).





 

3 nam shub web installation

http://joerg.piringer.net/namshubwebinstallation

nam shub web (installation)is the gallery version of the net-installation nam shub web. the user created visual arrangements of external webpages are reinterpreted by a computer program that controls a laser printer. every 4 minutes a new interpretation of the textual and typographic content is be printed and falls to the floor of the gallery. over the course of the exhibition the space in front of the printer is filled with printouts.

nam shub web is a website processor. it takes the textual content of external websites and applies user defined rules to generate visual poetry out of it. these rules consist of operations that change the text or modify the visual appearance.

        

each set of rules can be stored and published for others to view and alter. however nam shub web does not store any actual content. it only records commands of how to alter the external website content. in case of a dynamic website as the source the visual and textual results change with the dynamic content.


   

according to Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash, the ancient sumerian nam shub of Enki was a neurolinguistic hack aimed against the standardarization and unification of society and human life through verbal rules and laws. therefore nam shub web can be seen as a computerlinguistic hack targeted against a global unified culture and empire.



 

nam shub web (installation)was shown at Moderna galerija Ljubljana (Slowenia) and Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Austria).




 

4 rumor has it

rumors are short stories with uncertain facts. because of real time distribution and volatility the twitter-platform is perfectly suited for the dissemination of short and instant messages.




   

in the installation rumor has it a machine collects streams of twitter-feeds that contain the phrase „rumor has it“ in real time and prints it out on adhesive labels of variable length. the visitors of the installation can either cut up and attach these rumor strips to a board in the exhibition or take them to the streets and stick them to whatever they want.

rumor has itwas shown in Vienna (Austria)

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App Art



Konsonants



 

konsonantis an extraordinary exploration of letters, voice and technology by the media artist joerg piringer. Containing a suite of original music tracks (downloadable for free as mp3s) as well as interactive musical artifacts, the app is in fact a music album with conventional music as well as sound toys for mobile technology.

Following the award winning success of piringer's app abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz konsonant is the next iteration of the artist's ongoing research on the potential entertaining qualities of letters and sound.

konsonantreceived the ZKM AppArtAward 2012

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Jörg Piringer, Bio

Born in 1974. Jörg currently lives in Vienna, Austria. He is a member of the Institute for Transacoustic Research, and a member of the vegetable orchestra. Jörg works as a freelance artist and researcher in the fields of electronic music, radio art, sound and visual electronic poetry, interactive collaborative systems, online communities, live performance, sound installation, computer games and video art. homepage http:joerg.piringer.net

Selected publications: 
Flugschrift nr. 18
iPhone Virtual Reality App: tractatus infinitus VR
Apple Watch & iPhone-app: tiny poems
album & iPhone app: konsonant - sound poetry app and mp3 album
Book: A Global Visuage (raum für notizen) together with Günther Vallaster et al., edition ch (A)
LP: three ideophones published by onomatopee (NL)
CD: ONIONOISE - the vegetable orchestra published by transacoustic research (A)

Recent exhibitions, festivals and performances
mutations / creations @ centre pompidou 2018 - paris, fr
101 mediapoetry festival 2018 - st. petersburg, ru
oslo internasjonale poesifestival 2017 - olso , no
La palabra en las periferias de la tecnología 2017 - madrid, es
Text-World-World-Text 2016 - graz, at
RADIO 2015 - paris, fr
donaueschinger musiktage 2014 - donaueschingen, de
SOUNDOUT festival 2014 - berlin, de
kapittel festival 2013 - stavanger, no
tokyo sound poetry festival 2012 - tokyo, jp
literatur und strom 2012 - stuttgart, de
poetry festival 2011 - berlin, de e-poetry 2011 - buffalo, usa
reVox 2010 - madrid, es
medienturm graz 2010 – graz, at
la bás biennale 2010 – helsinki, fi

awards
lime_lab2 radio play prize - graz, at)
poetry prize „hautnah 2014“ ORF Ö1 - vienna, at
ZKM AppArtAward 2012 - karlsruhe, de
honorary mention digital musics and sound art prix ars electronica 2010 - linz, at
prize of honor FILE PRIXLUX 2010 - são paulo, br
content award vienna 2010 - vienna, at

 

 

 

Through hyperrealistic painting, vivmoe explores the perception of reality and digitality. Her works challenge the boundaries of the visible by addressing the invisible - whether in the form of supposed emptiness or through the representation of digital processes via analog painting. The classical technique of trompe-l’œil becomes a method of deconstruction: what appears tangible eludes direct grasp, pointing instead to a deeper level of perception.

Title: ifyoureadingthisitsallsaid. Oil on canvas 60 x 70 cm 2023

Title: forgottopeelofthetape, Oil on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 2023

The theoretical foundations of her work draw from quantum physics and philosophy. The principles of entanglement and non-locality, which in quantum mechanics dissolve the notion of isolated entities, are reflected in her conviction that reality is a relational construct. The idea that the future does not simply arise from the continuation of the past but emerges from a conscious openness to the yet-to-be finds its visual counterpart in vivmoe’s works: her painting operates at the threshold between the present and the potential, between being and non-being.

This tension between connection and alienation manifests holistically in her artistic practice. Her approach to music - particularly the piano - was an unexpected revelation of how knowledge and skills can reside within us without being consciously learned. When vivmoe sat at a piano for the first time in 2021, she intuitively played a piece by Bach, as if the instrument had been waiting for her all along. For her, this experience means surrendering to the flow of time - being fully present in a moment where each note responds to the previous one and calls forth the next. This fleeting dynamic mirrors the essence of her artistic practice: the search for the invisible within the visible, for the “nothingness” that paradoxically contains everything. Just as music follows a logic that transcends deliberate learning, reality does not arise merely from declarations of intent but from complex, often invisible networks of human cognition and perception.
A central motif in vivmoe’s artistic practice is the concept of emptiness - not as absence, but as a space of possibility. Works like ifyourereadingthisitsallsaid embody this exploration in its purest form: a seemingly empty wooden frame, a small note instructing the viewer to ask ChatGPT to generate a painting.

What at first glance appears as an unpainted surface reveals itself, upon closer inspection, as a meticulously rendered illusion. Here, reflections on perception, artificial intelligence, and authorship intertwine - an interplay of expectations that challenges the viewer to reconsider their own role in the construction of meaning.

 

 

Are you a happy mesh?

Video series/audiovisual performances/ installation/ object treadmill/print, augmented reality, mixed reality, 2024

Between war and spectacle lies a quiet power. Drones, algorithms, and projected images speak a language of signs that shapes a visual vocabulary and draws us into narratives we barely notice. The aesthetics of light cannot be separated from power: the same spectacle that dazzles can mark borders or instill fear; technology itself is amoral. The real terrain is our thinking—not how they fly, but which stories they anchor in us as they pass overhead.

Machine Royale: Echo Chambers of Our Time

Video installation/object robot surrounded by  a guinea pig fent with black shadowballs. 2025

Machine Royale — Echo Chambers of Our Time explores desire within emerging power structures across digital and physical spaces and their effects on society. Technologies like AI and digital currencies fuel a hunger for efficiency, inflating bubbles whose bursts reshape social and economic life. The work asks how we will navigate dataism while dulled by an incessant flood of communication and information.

Self-awareness at 42 % battery level

Installation/object robot with baroque mirror, 2025

The robot’s gaze into the mirror becomes a quiet allegory of a philosophical question: Can a being without consciousness recognize itself?

In “Self-Awareness at 42% Battery Level,” cold mechanics meets the age-old gesture of self-contemplation. The 42% battery level laconically points to limitation: the moment of reflection is fleeting, temporarily charged, half-conscious—a liminal state between thinking and calculating, being and simulation.

 

Training Your Best Friend: A Character Test

2 Channel, 8:16 min, loop, experimental Video/installation, tank dog robot, cages, accessoires of tanky leo and trainer, print, 2020

The work examines the co-evolutionary relationship between human and machine. How a co-evolution between human and machine behaves, is reflected of the historical background and future significance of a tank. Will the tank of the future have a completely different form?

LEO MN2033 is a with shepherd dog data trained AI that is both a pet and a protector machine. Its task is to serve as a companion and protector in everyday life. Leo has been assigned to the category of working dog, which is subject to the strict and constantly monitored requirements of the German Electronic Shepherd Dog Association.

 

Data Me

Video/Installation 2023

Data Me explores post-digital life across nature, humans, and machines. The video installation DataMe: DataHorse questions the “happy” virtual body that labours as a data horse for algorithms, trapped in a produce–consume loop. Referencing the dressage method Rollkur (hyperflexion), it likens our constrained online posture—and narrowed perception—to dressage restraint, while platforms reward productivity and conformity with higher feed rankings or “Diamond Fan” badges. How long do we persist?

DATAME: DATAHORSE

Video/Installation, object, moving rocking horse with screen, yoga mat, 2023

Data Me explores post-digital life across nature, humans, and machines. The video installation DataMe: DataHorse questions the “happy” virtual body that labours as a data horse for algorithms, trapped in a produce–consume loop. Referencing the dressage method Rollkur (hyperflexion), it likens our constrained online posture—and narrowed perception—to dressage restraint, while platforms reward productivity and conformity with higher feed rankings or “Diamond Fan” badges. How long do we persist?

Training Your Best Friend: Smart Home Breeding

Video/Installation, objects playpen with robots and smartphone mobile, 2025

Training Your Best Friend: Smart Home Breeding sketches a speculative vignette of a possible everyday life in which machines are not only assistants but emotional points of reference, wards—or perhaps educators themselves. It remains open whether we appear as users, parents, or pets of these systems.

The installation speculatively explores social behaviour and our relationships with new technologies. It starts from the observation that not only our relationships with one another, but also our ideas of affection, upbringing/breeding, and sociality are increasingly being reshaped by algorithmic systems and digital infrastructures.