ARTIST IN RESIDENCE 2020: Christian Kosmas Mayer

© Von Christian Zürn, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=77340543

Starting in  summer 2020, the Viennese artist Christian Kosmas Mayer was the first Artist in Residence in the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden programme, spending six months at the Technische Universität Dresden. Mayer is laureate of the Outstanding Artist Award 2020 of the Republic of Austria. For his research project in the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden, he was awarded the Falling Walls Award of the prestigious Falling Walls Science Summit in 2022.

Together with early-career researchers at the Schaufler Kolleg@TU Dresden and through exchange with various university departments, Christian Kosmas Mayer conducted artistic research on the lab’s first main research topic:  'Artificial intelligence as factor and consequence of societal and cultural change'.

His cross-media art objects and installations are based on detailed research into history and contemporary society as a means of critically re-evaluating past and present. He achieves this by placing evolutionary and natural phenomena into the framework of cultural history and science. Mayer’s artistic work focuses on the critical exploration of archiving and conserving as deliberate acts that create history, shape the present, and point to the future.

PROJECT AT THE TU DRESDEN

The point of reference for the artistic research project that Christian Kosmas Mayer  realised during his Schaufler Residency@TU Dresden was the eternal human desire for immortality, for crossing the boundaries of our natural life. The artist located his exploration at the interface of various fields of research in both the natural sciences and the humanities, referring specifically to the latest technologies from the fields of biology, cryonics and artificial intelligence - the first main research topic of the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden. Mayer reflected on both the historical dimensions and ethical-philosophical implications of these disciplines.

Christian Kosmas presented his research project at the Lab from November 2021 to January 2022 in the exhibition "A & I" in the Altana Gallery. At the end of the Lab's first funding period, in 2024, he will show the results of his residency in a group exhibition at SCHAUWERK Sindelfingen with all four artists in residence of the first period.

The artist on his residency at Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden:

"During my residency, the Schaufler Lab@TU Dresden offered me the excellent opportunity to collaborate with scientists from different disciplines such as biology, language technology, computer science, refrigeration technology and art science to further develop my artistic research. The resulting work would not have been possible without the intensive exchange with these researchers and the graduate students of the lab´s graduate school. Very important for my work was the Office for Academic Heritage, which made all the important connections inside and outside the TU and opened doors that would otherwise have remained closed to me. It was a very enriching time in Dresden and I am happy to now be able to show some of the work created here."

Documentation of the artistic research of Christian Kosmas Mayer

Short CV of the artist

Christian Kosmas Mayer (*1976 in Sigmaringen, Germany) lives and works in Vienna.
His solo exhibitions have appeared in renowned institutions, including the mumok - Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig (Vienna), Galerie Mezzanin (Geneva), Galerie Nagel Draxler (Berlin), Österreichische Galerie Belvedere (Vienna), and Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg (Stuttgart). Moreover, Christian Kosmas Mayer's works have been presented in numerous international group exhibitions such as in the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Austrian Cultural Forum (New York), ZKM - Zentrum für Kunst und Medien Karlsruhe, Leopold Museum (Vienna), MAK Center for Art and Architecture (Los Angeles), Kunsthalle Wien, and Manifesta 7 (Trento). In addition, the artist is co-editor of an art magazine (www.ztscrpt.net).