Infinite Screen – Apocatastasis, Supraliminal exhibition at Kraftwerk Berlin 26 – 30 April during Gallery Weekend Berlin

In the continuity of its immersive exhibitions, the Kraftwerk Berlin – a former power plant converted into an art center – presents, during Gallery Weekend 2023 “Infinite Screen” with 6 intermedial installations a giant in-situ intermedial sculpture, in the form of a 97 m linear media composition with 14 channel sound, which traces perspectives and transgresses the entirety of the space of Kraftwerk. The title of this new work, “Apocatastasis,” refers to the ancient concept of a post-apocalyptic reset.

Infinite Screen is a project by AROTIN & SERGHEI realized in cooperation with Ircam / Centre Pompidou / Festival Manifeste, La Biennale di Venezia, Klangforum Wien, WDR, Wien Modern, Ars Electronica, Fondation Beyeler Basel, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Kraftwerk Berlin, supported by Kira A. Princess of Prussia Foundation, Espace Muraille, Eva Kahan Foundation, Guerin Projects. Media partnerships: Beaux Arts Magazine (Paris), Spike Magazine (Berlin). Technical Partner: Pixelight (Paris), Active Image (Berlin). Exhibition Catalogue: Ed. Hatje Cantz (Berlin).

For the emblematic Centre Pompidou square, the artist duo AROTIN & SERGHEI conceived an installation of intermedial sculptures, part of their work-in-progress Infinite Screen: 4 Infinite Light Columns installed along the extension of the Arts Center, the IRCAM tower by Renzo Piano and constructed by “immaterial” modules of individually drawn and animated portraits of “light cells”. The work honours the visions of the multiple avant-gardes and disciplines presented at the Centre Pompidou, most particularly paying homage to the museum’s collections notably Brancusi‘s Infinite Columns, Kandinsky’s Synethesia, and paying tribute to the architecture itself as well as to the sound universe of the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics & Music – IRCAM-Centre Pompidou.

“This installation delights me, not only because it is beautiful and because it is interesting, but because for me it symbolizes something very powerful, it symbolizes what the Center Pompidou wants to be, … a multidisciplinary ensemble … The installation is a sort of tribute to Brancusi, whose studio is at the other end of the Piazza … it is for me the resurrection of an initial spirit of the Center Pompidou, the piazza as the living heart of artistic creation.”
Serge Lasvignes,
president CENTRE POMPIDOU
_{from opening speech}

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The Infinite Screen project is a work-in-progress and growing platform for essential research about the extension of spirit, thoughts, space and time in the context of our digital screen based world.

The project is AROTIN & SERGHEI’s opus magnum – the artists are creating and producing series of innovative artworks and large-scale installations in very different forms and formats, from exhibition objects up to large scale installation in public space, and using the whole diversity of materialization possibilities, that are characteristic for digital art. Those artworks are creating links towards key questionings of humanism, philosophy, metaphysics and quantum physics. Several of the creations are realized in cooperation with extraordinary researchers, inventors, composers, musicians, architects, neuroscientifics and astrophysicians.

The project is ongoing and open for participation. Fundraising is underway to continue the construction and the documentation. Please consider supporting the work’s evolution by becoming a friend, contributing friend, supporter, associate or benefactor.

The artworks are realized and presented in the context and in cooperation with leading art galleries, festivals and art institutions: One of the first artworks cycle was Mute Space and White Screen – red, blue and green “portraits of Light Cells”(Tefaf Maastricht 2012). The following large scale installation was commissioned and presented at La Biennale di Venezia and Konzerthaus Vienna with Klangforum Wien (2013/15). The Fondation Beyeler commissioned a 360 installation Prometheus (2016) within the framework of the exhibition Kandinsky, Marc – Der blaue Reiter. White Point, Radical Atoms, and the Wittgenstein cycle were realized for the Ars Electronica Festivals (2014-19). In 2016, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien commissioned an installation in occasion of the 125 years of the museum, in this way Infinite Screen was presented around the Tower of Babel, on of the most famous paintings of the museum, as a symbol and starting point for the 1,200 m2 installation on the Museum’s main façade during one month from dusk to midnight. 2017 the art center Espace Muraille Geneve commissioned a media artwork, occasion for the creation of the Infinite Time Machine, a composition on 6 orchestrated canvases, Metamorphosis and Gateways to Elysium were exceptional exhibition projects with Vienna Contemporary and Gallery W&K Vienna New York (2018). In Arts Festival Vernon–Giverny was created Impressions- Dialogues avec Monet (2019), and at Ars Electronica the Infinite Light Column, a symbol of change of perspective, project that is actually developed in cooperation wth Ircam at Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Infinite Screen was founded and directed by AROTIN & SERGHEI. The artists duo formed by Alexander Arotin and Serghei Dubin is based in Paris, South of France, Toscany and with project spaces in Berlin. For the realization and the presentation of works, AROTIN & SERGHEI create partnerships and cooperation with institutions, museums, international galleries and festivals, such as with Ars Electronica, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, the Venice Biennale, the Foundation Beyeler or currently with the Ircam-Center Pompidou.

AROTIN & SERGHEI are directing their creation and production workshop researching innovation in signs, shapes and contents in the arts and realising pluridisciplinary projects, intermedial paintings (for walls) as well as large scale installations and intermedial sculptures (in public space).

AROTIN, born in Vienna, grew up between Vienna and Paris. He studied composition, conducting, theatrical and cinematographic production, electronic music and new technologies of images. SERGHEI, born in Chisinau, USSR, grew up in St. Petersburg and Moscow, studied music, theater, art history, philosophy.
The is apart of the European Platform for Digital Humanism, co-initiator of Ars Electronica Gallery Space, helds seminaries and conferences on the development of creativity in the multidisciplinary context at the University of Luxembourg, is an artist representative for The State of Fine Art – International Symposium, Parliament European Brussels, initiators of Metamorphosis – Art & Innovation …

more info: www.arotinserghei.com