Weight Of Light

exhibited Kärnten-Triennale II

zeit.čas.tempo

This sequence is meant to depict the timelessness of egomania. The theft of light leaves darkness and coldness in times past and future. The brightening for the individual is the darkening for the community. Every time, every generation has stood, stands or will stand in the obligation to put the egoism and greed of the individual behind, for the well-being of society.

The idea for this project came from the title “weight of light” itself. I am no writer to be able to approach this complex topic with words, so I have to rely on my visual language. In order to grasp this problem, I simply removed the light except for one and waited for what would happen…

© Peter Bauer

Back to the Middle-Ages.

exhibited at Professional Association of Austrian Artists Carinthia

Alpen-Adria-Gallery

In the crisis comes knowledge. The division in society is becoming dramatic, our values and structures are dissolving and we are manifesting ourselves again in the middle Ages! We put ourselves in chains by giving up what should distinguish us as humans. Namely, to listen to and communicate to others, to be open to different views and approaches, to solve conflicts and problems together. This also includes education and information from all directions. Social media are basically a great thing, only one scenario is developing that should really alarm us! In the Networks it goes on like in the Middle Ages. Fakes, hoaxes, envy, hatred, odium, racism, extremism…. it starts with seemingly harmless things like the struggle for “likes” and ends with virtual witch burnings, which do not stay virtual, this also haves a direct impact on our real, only one life. We allow ourselves to be defined by “likes” and “followers”, build castles in which only our rules apply, and behave like the prince of darkness. Social media also actively support us by starting to feed us with content tailored to our online behavior. With a personalization algorithm, they make it easy for us to hide everything that does not suit us and so the moat becomes deeper and wider that we ourselves can no longer see beyond it. We are not hollow heads sitting in their own dungeon, we are people who can leave their comfort zone, learn, research, work out solutions, together, with all of our experience in exchange. – Yet!

© Peter Bauer

The Plastic People

or the "Glory Final"

exhibited at Professional Association of Austrian Artists Carinthia

Alpen-Adria-Gallery

So these are not shocking present-day photos, they rather show us the future that lies ahead of us if we carry on like this. Shocking photos flood social media every day, but what happens? People say these are just photos. Apparently, people today are already immune to the message that’s being told. We urgently need to create a new awareness of our environment and it’s not only done through complaints on social media or demonstrations. We have to start living in a state of healthy awareness regarding all human matters! We all know the straightforward things we can do or should avoid! We just have to start and take action! Yes, that might be inconvenient, but look at my pictures: I think it’s much more inconvenient to suffocate in the garbage like a plastic mummy buried beneath piles of trash. Or can we only save our planet if we reduce humanity to AI? It’s now in our hands!

Sincerely !

The intention is to explore the feelings and quality of life in a world buried with piles of plastic-trash and recognize the possible next state of human evolution. Technology might play a critical role in our biology in the not-so-distant future and so evolution might go its way from the “Homo sapiens plastica” to “Homo excelsior”, a trans-human, and finally to the “Post-human”.

© Peter Bauer