SENSEFACTORY

SENSEFACTORY is an immersive installation that marked the centennial anniversary of the Bauhaus’s founding by interpreting the enigmatic and unbuilt theater concept of total immersion, “Mechanical Eccentric”, by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Only represented as a singular ‘score sketch’, its author envisioned this image as provisional instructions for a time-based experience to challenge conventions constructed by a proscenium stage. Foreshadowing, what would be known as ‘installation art’ fifty years later, visitors would directly participate in a situation that absorbed them using the full range of their sensoria using scent, touch, haptics, light, sound, and color. Each of these bodily portals of perception determined the selection of artists to collaborate. Curated by Munich’s Muffathalle director Dietmar Lupher, Sissel Tolaas’s artistic approach to scent combines with Alex Schweder’s work with time-based architecture, layered with FM Einheit’s radical treatment of sound and Chris Salter’s approach to light, was then scored using outcomes from Sofian Audrey’s research into sensing technology. Rather than speculate about the specifics of Moholy-Nagy vision and then attempt to faithfully realize those assumptions as though they were facts, the collaborating artists saw this gap between intention and reception as a site where their misunderstandings might be productive. This work was made possible with funding from Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Enzo degli Angiuoni generously supported specialized fabrics for this work. Developed in collaboration with Clemens Klein,