Practice: Sculpture, performance, urbanism, architecture, design and digital art.
Georg is the co-founder of transformative urbanism studio LAUT, the person behind his art and design label x04x, engaged in the post-carbon mobility non profit Smarter Than Car. Working on all levels and scales across gestalt-concerned disciplines, his work can be summarized as an interest in human action, experience and responsibility in the Anthropocene. His cross-disciplinary insight is showcased in a broad range of projects ranging from concepts for sustainable urban transformation, built architecture, immersive art installations, sculptures and digital art to, furniture and object design. His work is deeply rooted in functional design principles that are expressed through his distinctive aesthetics by utilizing a sustainable, haptic approach and materials.
Why are you a part of MagiC Carpets: I first met Danijela Oberhofer Tonković (MC curator in Innsbruck) while realising my installation “virtues of reality” at Space Nouvelle in Innsbruck. Already then she asked me to submit my portfolio in order to participate in the MagiC Carpets Programme. By that time I was too busy with the ongoing projects and almost forgot about it. Luckily we met again almost a year later at my installation “Corporeal Tectonics” during Heart of Noise Festival of 2020. Danijela encouraged me again to provide the materials and I was finally able to compile a portfolio. She matched me up with the MagiC Carpets team in Kaunas. After learning more about their project ideas and the possibilities in Kaunas, I was immediately intrigued by the opportunity and the challenge they offered.
Past projects you are proud of:
Title: Virtues of Reality
Type: Performance, Sculpture, Installation
In his work x04x, the artist is exploring the phenomenological and structuralist processes of a production-oriented society in the context of his own individual artistic strategies. Based on heterogeneous and hybrid structures between human, technology and nature in the Anthropocene – the geological epoch defined by the action of humans – x04x combines biological with synthetic substances and archaic materials with technological aesthetics in the sculpture installation that was produced for SPACE NOUVELLE. For days, the artist builds, layers and ties the sculpture with linden wood elements, electronic waste, textile fabrics and other repurposed materials in a performative act. Similar to the construction of networks, the systematic supply of materials is creating new nodes and connections. This installation is actively growing in the exhibition space as a collective body and real structure, entering the sensual reality and generating the atmospheric denseness in the area of tension between craft and high technology. (Text by Anna Fliri – Space Nouvelle).
Title: Parklet 2 Go
Type: Furniture design – urban activism tool
The PARKLET 2 GO is a pedal-powered, mobile toolkit to quickly, informally and effectively create a temporary parklet. It transforms parking spaces into places to meet, hang out and host a spontaneous public discourse about how we use space in our cities.
The PARKLET 2GO is a mobile urban furniture ensemble adaptable to various public spaces: Car-only parking lots or underused urban plazas alike. Its modular design features two large benches that seat up to eight people, two parasols, a table, four small barrier elements, three flower beds and one plant container as a habitat for the resilient city tree. The PARKLET 2 GO can be swiftly loaded onto a bicycle trailer for a zerocarbon and flexible transport across the cityscape.
The PARKLET 2 GO is a tool for engaged urban practitioners for making alternative designs of urban public space tangible. With the PARKLET 2 GO hands-on urbanists can proactively initiate awareness changing interventions in public space and start a discourse amongst passers-by, residents and decision-makers about how we use the cityscape.
The PARKLET 2 GO was developed for the NGO Smarter Than Car and co-authored by Florian Lorenz.
Title: Ax – Wasser – 12T35
Type: Sculpture
Axwasser 12T35 was conceived as an independent work as well as a set-piece and actor for the experimental opera Akthamar II by Ekehardt Rainalter. The premiere was part of 2019s Heart of Noise Festival in the House of Music, Innsbruck. The sculpture is made up of a conglomerate of speakers and other carefully selected e-waste components. These parts are embedded in a network of metal pipes, wire, cables and ropes. These synthetic components are combined with animal bones twigs and other pieces of wood to form an organic hybrid that references the commenced hybridization of nature, mankind and machine. Except for the sound emanating speakers and some integrated light circuits, the sculpture is devoid of any functionality. This unanimated state is in stark contrast with its vivid appearance and is deliberately disappointing the charged expectations contemporary viewers have towards a constantly evolving ecosystem of technological agents. The fetishized nature of machine systems is revealed by the sculptures unanimated body. It bears strong marks of its own made-ness, visible marks of human labour that point to the origin of all technologies, no matter how complex; to human craftsmanship and handiwork.
What inspires you as an artist? Practically everything, sometimes the most mundane, everyday things can be very inspiring, as can be the star artists exhibition in an established old fashioned museum.
What do you think is the purpose of art? Maybe its a cliché, but I think art is a way of trying to make sense of the world. For the artist it can be a way of externalising parts of his or her inner world in a form that can be perceived and, ideally, enjoyed by others.
Your favourite book(s): All of them, Neuromancer by William Gibson is an all time favourite, most recently “Das terrestrische Manifest“ by Bruno Latour.
Contact information
Email: [email protected] | Instagram | www.x04x.com