Amplified Entity

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Carolin Liebl (DE) + Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler (DE)
kinetic sculpture, 2016

The inspiration for Carolin Liebl and Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler to create “Amplified Entity” came from their residency stay at WRO Art Center in 2013 and the accompanying robotic workshops for children. The authors of robotic installations and investigators of the relationship between inducers and resistors will present at WRO 2017 their latest kinetic object.

On a clean, metal surface, there is a tunnel-like body lying which is made from coiled copper wires. Inside this biomorphic-like structure, there are solid coils installed, whose magnetic field sets the object in motion, like a muscle that tenses and relaxes. The electricity is supplied by copper wires embedded in silicon, like an umbilical cord which provide the “being” with energy. The strategies of abstraction and amplification result in something monstrous and ambiguous.

Liebl and Schmid-Pfähler create an atmosphere of scientific experiment without social interaction in the sense that the object remains independent of the viewer; however, the lack of communication does not distract invoking the deep sense of an uncanny valley. The aesthetically pleasing “Amplified Entity” literally enhances the perception of the title being.

Carolin Liebl (DE), born 1989, and Nikolas Schmid-Pfähler (DE), born 1987, study Electronic Art at the University of Art and Design Offenbach. Since 2012 they collaborate as an artist duo. With their sculptures they want to question the perception of technology by working with patterns that divert from the expected deterministic machine behavior. 2016, they have got the exhibition and catalogue grant from the Frankfurter Sparkasse Foundation, in the course of this they realized their first solo exhibition. Two of their latest group exhibitions were “Videonale 2017” in Bonn and “The Beauty of the Matter” at La Galleria in Venice 2016. They works have also been presented during the WRO Biennale in 2013 and 2015, and at the “moths, crabs, fluids” exhibition in the Koszyki Hall in Warsaw in 2016 as part of the ECO EXPANDED CITY project.