Eloïse Bonneviot & Anne de Boer at Heidelberger Kunstverein

Artists: Eloïse Bonneviot & Anne de Boer

Exhibition title: Tracing a Seeping Terrain

Curated by: Johanna Hardt

Venue: Heidelberger Kunstverein, Heidelberg, Germany

Date: September 2 – November 5, 2023

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Heidelberger Kunstverein

The Heidelberger Kunstverein presents the inaugural exhibition by Eloïse Bonneviot and Anne de Boer in Germany. The project is a culmination of their work to date and explores cultural responses to the accelerating ecological crisis through game mechanics.

“Tracing a Seeping Terrain” is an interactive installation forging new avenues of aesthetic and environmental engagement. The experiential and entertaining aspect of the game is presented as a possible way of facing climate change issues, where feelings of guilt and powerlessness often prevail. Specially conceived for the Heidelberger Kunstverein, the show consists of interactive sculptures connected to various loudspeakers and a virtual landscape. Central to the experience is the involvement of the visitors, whose actions in the physical space shape the appearance of the projected landscape and its soundscape.

Within the game’s narrative, visitors act as non-human agents who influence the ecological state of the world they have entered. Equipped at the entrance with various tools incorporating RFID technology, they trigger different events by interacting with the sculptures throughout the exhibition. Depending on their choices, fires break out, buildings deteriorate, plants grow, or butterflies reappear. These reactions are both visible and audible.

Alongside the computer-generated fictional landscape demonstrating possible ways to imagine the ecological, the exhibition encompasses works that draw inspiration from real-world governmental initiatives. These initiatives utilise satellite imagery and geospatial data to create maps for emergency response efforts, such as the Copernicus Emergency Management Service, developed by the European Union and the European Space Agency. They provide information on flood-prone areas, potential landslide zones, and other hazards. In this context, De Boer and Bonneviot explore the impact of data on our relationship with ecological systems, shedding light on how these technologies communicate and simulate natural environments. They also consider the emotions evoked by the dissemination of such data.

The exhibition playfully explores the interplay between our digital environments and the ecosystems they seek to represent, fostering a discourse at the intersection of data, technology, and ecology.

Exhibition:
Voice by Sarah Giese
Sound by Bastian Hagedorn
Virtual Environment by Nicholas Delap
Based on programming by Xing Xiao & Xiyue Hu (In vitro team)

Supported by Innovationsfonds Kunst des Ministeriums für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kunst Baden-Württemberg.

Eloïse Bonneviot & Anne de Boer, “Tracing a Seeping Terrain”, Installation Images, Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2023, Photo: Tanja Meißner, Courtesy HDKV